


So Far Gone

by screamlet



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Academy Era, Banter, Crack, Ensemble Cast, First Meetings, First Time, Humor, Missing Scene, Multi, POV Female Character, POV Multiple, Starfleet Academy, Threesome - M/M/M, happy birthday zlot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts with the shuttle trip from Riverside Shipyard to Starfleet Academy and picks up from Kirk and McCoy's conversation in the Reboot film. Suddenly, it's an epic, sprawling monster that fills in the gaps of the Academy years, the <i>Narada</i>, and the early years of the five-year mission. Humorous, dramatic, angsty, sexy, ridiculous -- it's got it all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shuttle

**Author's Note:**

> Series title comes from Hall and Oates' [Rich Girl](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxRy30qs0g) because bogged was listening to it, my brain died, and this is (mostly) crack. It is so far gone.
> 
> FYI: [Gary Mitchell](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gary_Mitchell).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shuttle ride from Riverside Shipyard to Starfleet Academy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For waldorph, who was having a shitty day at work and I wrote this for her in gchat, lol wut.

"So -- was the bathroom nice?"

"...what?"

"You told that terrifying little power trip that you had a seat in the bathroom. Was it as nice as this? I mean, did the seatbelt hug your crotch as snugly as these do?"

McCoy looked at him, eyes glazed from what had to be sleeplessness rather than his sad little flask (unless that sad little flask had brothers and sisters hiding all over McCoy's body, in which case, _bravo_) and Kirk repeated himself.

"Nice bathrooms? Do you speak English? Was that big rant about space some kind of psychotic break? Were you speaking in tongues?"

Kirk looks over and _Uhura_ is staring at him, and doesn't stop staring when he looks back. She looks kind of disgusted, so he lewdly licks his top row of teeth until she shudders and looks away. He looks back at McCoy, who has straightened up a good two centimeters and pulled out the baby flask again.

"I've seen better. My little girl's dug better latrines with her feet."

"And making your little girl dig toilets -- no correlation to your earth-shattering divorce?"

"Shut up," McCoy growls. "It's a metaphor."

"Ah," Kirk says, and he looks down at his hands, sitting folded in his lap, twiddling his thumbs. "So is the kid a metaphor too --"

"Joanna's four."

"They're so cute at that age."

"_You_ have _kids_?"

"None I know of, but I'm sure some of them have to be four by now."

McCoy looks at him and Kirk grins until he gets McCoy's face to crack just a little at the corner.

"Why Starfleet, man? I've got _literally_ nothing back there -- but you --"

"Believe me, Jim, if it was my choice, I wouldn't be in this tin can with these acne cesspools either, but here I am."

"What do you think you'll specialize in?"

"I'm a doctor."

"Hot shit," Kirk laughs. "A fucking _doctor_, with your personality? Doctor of _what_? Dickishness? With a minor in asshattery? Tell me it's gynecology. Please."

Kirk looks over and sees Uhura snorting into her sleeve with laughter. Yeah. She's totally his.

"Uhura over there," Kirk says, "Is studying _xenolinguistics_. I bet I know your adviser," he says to her. "You seem like you'd be into... Kh'unt."

"Into _what_?" McCoy sputters. Suddenly their tin can smells like whiskey. Smells _more_ like whiskey. Suddenly things other than McCoy's mouth and hair and clothes smell like debauched depravity, and it might be Kirk's shoes.

"Or maybe you're more of the late Dr. Pei Niss's school of thought," Kirk muses.

"Wow, you're like, twelve. At best," Uhura replies.

"Uhura, don't even pretend like you don't find 12-year-olds sexy as all get out, okay?" Kirk replies. He looks at McCoy and says, "Last night, I run into her and her friends and every cadet in town at this bar, right --"

"You're that asshole who got the shit kicked out of him!" McCoy realizes, and then he groans. "Dammit, I bet some kid you wouldn't survive the night with all your teeth."

"That was me!" a cadet says from a row behind them. "Gary Mitchell. Look me up. You owe me a drink."

Kirk looks over his shoulder and raises his eyebrow at the cadet, who looked kind of shocked to see him. "What?"

"You're hot for white trash," Gary says.

Cupcake mutters something that probably has the word 'fag' in it, and the whole damn shuttle turns to look.

"You're saying, totally objectively," Gary says to Cupcake, "That you wouldn't suck his dick? Look at him."

"Thanks, man," Kirk says. He reaches over to steal McCoy's baby flask and toss it to him, which starts a game that makes McCoy weep a little because they're all spreading diseases like it's their job. (Well, they _are_ students --)

The flask comes to Cupcake, who considers it, realizes it's empty, and throws it back at Kirk (who catches it like it didn't have enough force to rip through his hand, fuck the bastard.)

"Tough shit," Kirk says, "Guess I won't ask you to homecoming."  
  
"I'm gonna pound you when we get to Starfleet!" Cupcake roars.

"Yeah, violate _every_ regulation five minutes into your second year, Cupcake, that's a really good idea," Kirk yawns. He looks to McCoy and asks, "So what were we talking about?"

"Why I still exist," McCoy groans, leaning his forehead against the pole separating them.

"Obviously, to treat me for all the STDs I plan on getting from Gary the second this shuttle lands," Kirk says loudly enough for Gary to hear. Gary laughs.

"Just so you know," Uhura interrupts, and she's talking over two rows of cadets to address Gary. "He's got bruises, cuts, scrapes, and black eyes because he was hitting on me last night."

"Then I guess we won't get married right away," Gary sighs. "It's okay, I never wanted an autumn wedding anyway."

"I've changed my mind," Uhura replies. "Keep him."

"These binaries you keep shoving at us," Kirk says. "Why's it gotta be you and me, or me and Gary, or me and _Leonard_? Why can't it be _all_ of us? Hey! Hey, Starfleet recruit shuttle?" Kirk lifts himself off the seat as much as he can and looks around the cramped space. "Just so you know, I love you all very much."

People laugh, return the sentiment, one of Cupcake's friends throws something at his head and makes contact, and Kirk carries on.

"Who _are_ you?" McCoy asks with real astonishment. "I've just." He grabs the wrist of the guy on the other side of him and looks at the chronometer. "We've only been in the air 20 minutes! Who _are you_?"

"Jim Kirk," Kirk replies. "Why are you so surprised?"

"That'll teach me to ask," McCoy huffs. "What are you going to Starfleet for?"

"Whatever the Pikester suggests," Kirk replies. "We've got a little bet going on -- how long it takes me to get a commission and my own ship."

"Mitchell," McCoy calls out, twisting in his seat to see Gary. "New bet. Six years."

"He'll do it in three," Gary replies.

"Fuck, I like him," Kirk whispers to McCoy.

"Be a little more obvious, I don't think he's gotten the hint yet."

The seatbelt sign goes off and Kirk is the first to free himself from his seat. He stands up, stretches, and heads over to the bathroom.

A step away from it, he stops short and calls out, "You coming, Gary? We've got like, another hour to kill until San Francisco."

"You're optimistic," Gary laughs, but he unbuckles his belt and stands up, the whole shuttle watching.

"I like cuddling," Kirk says. He lets Gary go into the cramped bathroom first, then stretches out a hand and smacks Cupcake on the back of the head before diving into the bathroom. Locking the door securely behind him and already pressed up against Gary, Kirk breathes deeply and laughs, and Gary does, too.

"Gives it that element of danger --"

"That being a few miles above the earth's surface didn't already have?" Gary asks with an eyebrow raised.

"Exactly," Kirk says as he rushes in and kisses him, pressing him into a few surfaces before deciding on the sink that is just the width of Gary's hips.


	2. Job Skills for the Real World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next to "Mandatory Sensitivity Training", "Job Skills for the Real World" was the most bullshit class Starfleet Academy had to offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screamlet: can i [return the favor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/95033) of gchat crack?  
> waldorph: i want gary and kirk  
> waldorph: um, I want them at the academy  
> waldorph: i don't even care if it's slash i just like them.
> 
> \--
> 
> So this is ridiculous, even by my standards.

Next to "Mandatory Sensitivity Training" (which only had an Orion girl and a Vulcan enrolled in it, and Kirk was pretty sure the Vulcan wasn't even a _student_), "Job Skills for the Real World" was the most bullshit class Starfleet Academy had to offer.

Today, Kirk and Gary were learning how to deal with bad attitudes in the workplace. Gary was having a difficult time being an asshole, and Kirk had the inverse problem.

"You're embarrassing _everyone_ you know," Kirk hissed under his breath. "What would Bones say if he could see you being such a pussy?"

"He'd say, 'Gary, thank God you're not Jim, I love you like the son I'll never have,''" Gary whispered back.

"Gentlemen, you're not in character!" their instructor, Florence, shrieked

"Mitchell, I don't like the font you used on this report," Kirk said seriously.

"Raise the stakes, James!" Florence cried. "I don't _believe_ you're disappointed in his performance."

"Dammit, Mitchell!" Kirk yelled. "I _really_ don't like these serifs!"

"Stop fixating on the _typeface_, James! What do you want to _say_ to Gary?"

"For fuck's sake, Mitchell --"

"Language, James."

"Language," Gary agreed.

"Oh fuck you," Kirk muttered. "Mitchell, I don't like this background color but what I particularly _don't_ like is your _atittude_!

"Oh yeah?" Gary asked.

"That's it?" Kirk asked. "I pour my heart out and you give me an 'oh yeah'?"

Gary spread his legs wider in the chair and scratched at his balls lazily, then a little more intently, and then lazily again.

"Mitchell, when you sit like that, it's like you don't _respect_ me as your employer," Kirk said.

"Maybe I don't," Gary said.

"So I'm throwing you out the fucking airlock."

"Scene!" Florence shrieked. "James, do you intend to throw _all_ of your crewmembers who act as Gary did out of an _airlock_?" Florence turned to the rest of the class and asked, "How could James have handled this better?"

"Don't hire someone you're fucking," a girl called out. Kirk and Gary turned quickly to see who had spoken -- Larissa Seonu, who Gary had nearly fucked at a party before her boyfriend beat him up and _somehow_, that was _his_ fault and _she_ was upset. 

"Class. Language. Please. Standard Federation English, please."

"Why is a starship captain worrying about typesetting anyway?" another student asked. "This all seems kind of ridiculous."

"Captain Moreno, my character," Kirk explained while Gary chewed on his sleeve to avoid laughing out loud, "Was upset about the typeface because he didn't want to outright accuse Mitchell of _murdering his daughter_."

"That's not plausible," ten people said.

"Accuse Mitchell of _murdering his ambition_!" Kirk attempted, each suggestion accompanied by a flourish and dramatic point of his finger into Gary's face. "Of ruining all his pants in the wash! Of --"

"James, what do you think people _do_ on a starship all day?" Florence asked, delicately sitting at a desk. "Mitchell is a representative of one of the 1500 people you hope to have under your command all day. What --"

"Well, fuck, maybe I'd know what people _did_ on a starship all day if I was _on_ a starship even for _one_ day, as opposed to being forced to reenact things I've never seen enacted in the first place!"

"Think back to when _you_ had a job --"

"Oh this is good," Kirk replied as he rubbed his hands together eagerly

"Mitchell, you're fucking pissing me off!" Kirk yelled. "How fucking _dare you_ bring my prize-winning Rigellian showcat back here after hours and -- no, I don't want to hear how you tried to break the sound barrier with the cat, it is -- that _still_ doesn't explain why you thought abducting my wife would -- _how dare you_ even _imply_ she would come with you willingly! That's it, you're _fired_. I'm -- you _dare me_ to call the police? That's it, Mitchell, come on. We're going at it. Man to man. Show me what you've got." Kirk stepped back from Gary, who hadn't moved except to snort during the monologue, and gasped loudly. "Margie! Kirk, what is my _daughter_ \-- no -- not you, Margie!"

"James, I believe --"

"Oh!" Kirk yelled as he fell on his knees and wrapped his arms around Gary's legs. "I am fortune's _fool_!" 

The class applauded while Gary pet Kirk's hair soothingly, Kirk still mock-sobbing loudly into Gary's pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mandatory Sensitivity Training" with a class roster of two (the Orion girl and the Vulcan) refers to another cracktastic Academy fic, leupagus and rageprufrock's [24x22](http://leupagus.livejournal.com/17272.html).


	3. The Clinic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCoy has to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For zlot. &lt;3

McCoy was a doctor for a good six years before She Who Shall Not Be Named and Took His Little Girl sent him packing. It means he has degrees as numerous as his hair follicles and that his schedule looks a little different from Kirk and Gary's, i.e., McCoy actually has to work.

He trots off to Starfleet Medical every morning, takes a few xeno-fucking-everything classes in the afternoon, and then spends his evenings making sure Kirk isn't murdered by everything and everyone that is out to get him (peanuts, shellfish, dust, 40 types of pollen, angry spouses, the whole fucking works).

One day, he steps into one of the examining rooms as he works the student clinic at Starfleet (or what he likes to call 'paying his due because somewhere in his youth or childhood, he must have brutally murdered something _adorable_') and sitting there was a smiling, copper-haired girl whose skin looked like a goddamn Federation-mandated Winter Tolerance Holiday card.

"Goodness, are you my doctor?" the holiday ornament asks. "You're too handsome for that!"

"I still have to cure you, flattery isn't necessary," McCoy says tiredly. "So what are your symptoms?"

"My name is Gaila," she says.

"I'm Dr. McCoy. What are your symptoms?"

"I'm sorry, it's traditional where I come from for some sort of intimacy to be established _before_ letting a stranger probe any part of me," Gaila says. "How are you today?"

"Are you kidding," McCoy growls. "I'm dandy. I'd like to move on to my next patient who might have something more serious than rug burn." He pauses and asks, "And if that _is_ rug burn, how did you get it _all over_?"

"It's not rug burn," she replies, "And you're not establishing any kind of rapport with me."

McCoy stops and raises his eyebrow. "Are you a test?"

"I'm an Orion," she replies. "What are you?"

"I'm a who."

"So am I; I'm not a _test_."

"You're getting snippy. I wonder if that's another symptom."

"My symptom is this _rash_, doctor!" she shrieks. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm supposed to be _green_!"

"Are you itchy?"

"If I were, I would be scratching -- so no, I'm not itchy."

"And when did this rash start?"

"This morning. I think -- oh of course!" Gaila cries. "It was the new lube!"

"Oh sweet Vulcan," McCoy says as he rubs the bridge of his nose.

"_That's_ how it got everywhere," she muses. She looks at McCoy brightly and asks, "What can you give me for it?"

"A prescription to not go --"

"BONES LET ME IN, MY SKIN'S FALLING OFF."

McCoy sighed and opened the door to let Kirk in. A tiny, _tiny_ bit of him sighed at the total lack of skin falling off.

"Jim, I'm a _doctor_, I'm with a _patient_ \-- take a number like everyone else," McCoy says, and then he notices that Kirk's rash looks very similar.

"Hey, it's you!" Kirk says when he stops peeling away a strip of his skin for proof.

"It's you!" Gaila replies. "I'm Gaila."

"Jim Kirk," he says, and they shake hands.

"This has got to be a new one," McCoy says as his eyes flick from one to the other. "Introducing yourself _after_ your one night stand _and I'm right here_."

"Oh, he thinks we fucked!" Gaila laughs.

"He thinks I've had sex with _everything_," Kirk sighs, and then he looks at McCoy seriously. "I _haven't_ had sex with everything."

"Then what's the rash, Jim?" McCoy asks.

"Lube slip and slide," Kirk says. "Where were you last night? You should have come!"

Kirk and Gaila exchange a look and giggle because they're 9 and 12 years old, respectively.

McCoy stands still for a moment and takes a deep breath before issuing his proclamation: "Gaila, nice to meet you. Get some aloe vera from the front and you should be fine in a day or two. Jim, you're disgusting. Get some aloe vera and _choke on it_. Both of you get out, don't talk to me about what you do with lube _ever again_, and I'll see you for dinner, Jim."

"You should join us!" Kirk says, "Now that I know your name."

"I'd _love_ to," she says, and they leave together, Kirk giving a final wave to McCoy before yelling through the clinic loudly:

"Doctor Leonard McCoy, you're the greatest! And so are your magic fingers!"

McCoy suddenly becomes very high in demand at the clinic and doesn't thank Kirk for it.


	4. Final Exams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the semester calls for special destressing techniques. (Poooooorn.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by waldorph, who wanted Jim, Gary, and final exams. Also for zlot, who just likes Kirk, Gary, McCoy, and sexiness.

"Jim -- we gotta talk."

Of course. Of fucking _course_. The first time in ten fucking months that Kirk is actually in his dorm room, reading quietly, getting ready for an exam, is _still_ the day McCoy is going to find him and bitch him out about something or other. Dammit.

"You breaking up with me?" Kirk asks, not looking up from his PADD.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm serious," McCoy says as he sits on the edge of Kirk's bed.

And he's never done it quite so gently, and he's never been this -- wait -

"Why aren't you yelling?" Kirk asks carefully. "Why - that vein isn't popping out of your neck. You're not breaking out in that 'DAMMIT, JIM' sweat on your forehead. What -- oh my GOD, are you DYING?"

"What the hell kind of a question is that?!" McCoy asks. "I just wanna talk to you!"

"Oh god you're going to die and I'll be alone forever and Gary -- Bones! Who's going to take care of _Gary_?! I'll be dead in a week, and who's --"

McCoy slaps a hand over Kirk's mouth and says, "_Shut up_ and listen."

Kirk nods his head silently and he can feel his eyes opening wider. He pries McCoy's hand off his mouth and holds it.

"I'm here for you if you need me," he says seriously.

McCoy raises an eyebrow and shakes his head.

"I just wanna talk to you about end-of-year stress management," McCoy says.

Kirk stares at him for a moment and then bursts out laughing. "For fuck's sake!" he yells. "I thought -- well, you know what I thought."

"The goddamn microbes in the dirt under this _building_ know what you thought, thanks to your subtle like a shuttle internal monologue."

"Look, it's not every day your best friend comes in here, not storming or yelling -"

"I lost a kid today," McCoy says finally. "First year, Coates?"

"Oh yeah. What an overachieving - wait, shit, he _died_?"

"Yeah, from _stress_. Just passed out during one of his exams," McCoy looks away and damn, maybe he _should_ spend the summer doing theater in some backwater town like he and Gary keep teasing him. "Never woke up."

"He was at the top of celestial cartography -- hey, now Gary's at the top!"

McCoy's Eyes of Judgment are on him and he says, "Sorry -- you were saying?"

"I was saying -- and I might never say this again --"

"This better be good because that was a fucking _downer_ of an opener."

"The best way to relieve stress around this time of year," McCoy sighs, "is sex. So. You better. You know. Punch it.

"...wait, what?" Kirk asks. 

"You heard what I said," McCoy snaps. "You've spent this whole damn year racking up point with the cultural connections club by nailing every damn sentient creature in sight _and_ that tree trunk the one time so I'm saying -- well -- you might want to -- ratchet it up a bit higher."

"Do you actually know how a ratchet works?"

"Shut up!" Ah, there's McCoy again, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing loud enough to wake a hungover cadet. "The point is, you're _going_ to be stressed and you're _going_ to run into whatever waiting legs and I'm _asking you_ to be smart about it. Like keep the number of partners you assault down to, I don't know, _not_ the entire house of ambassadors."

"What about their aides?" Kirk leers.

"Dammit," McCoy sighs.

"Look, Bones, I love this idea. I do. Because this PADD is cold and hard and I don't see the appeal at all. But you -" Kirk raises an eyebrow of his own, "You're looking a little stressed, and you _are_ the one who brought this up --"

"No," McCoy says. "I'm good."

"_Bones_," Kirk says. "You --"

"Well, look at the time," McCoy says and just like that, he's out of the room and probably back in Medical already - hopefully with a nurse, if he knows what's good for him.

"Wonder if Gary got the same talk," Kirk muses aloud. Only one way to find out.

*

Kirk thrusts slowly into Gary once, twice, and then it's too much - he moans a little and pulls out, managing to not collapse on Gary's chest before he flops on the other half of the bed. Gary runs a hand through his own hair, catching his breath before he looks at Kirk.

"Would you look at that -- weight training finally paid off," Gary laughs weakly. "Thanks for not throwing yourself on me and breaking my goddamn ribs for once."

"Right, I know," Kirk replies, and flexes an arm near Gary's face. "Gun show. It's back in town."

"For the first time."

"Shut up," he laughs as he shoves Gary in the shoulder.

"_Damn_, though, I needed that," Gary says as he nudges Kirk right back. "How'd you -"

"The doctor made a house call and it looks like for the next few weeks - carte blanche, motherfucker."

"Wait, no more lectures?"

"No more 'but do you _like them_, Jim?'"

"No more 'dammit, Mitchell, he could have _literally_ bitten your dick off' -- wait, that was a good tip."

"Bones says our little nubile overworked bodies need release and we should find it whenever we can," Kirk says.

"Awesome," Gary replies. "So awesome."

*

"No, I didn't - what part of --"

"You said, and I quote, 'ratchet it up'."

"Yeah, and then I said _keep the number of partners small_, you fucking genius."

"Well. Patient's discretion."

"Why an orgy, Jim. Why an orgy _in our room_?"

"It was the neatest! Gary lives in a sty."

McCoy sighs deeply and digs his fingers into his hair.

*

"We need to find a new way of expressing how badly that exam fucked us," Gary announces after a particularly awful one. "Because I don't know about you, but I _like_ sex. Truth be told, I like it _a lot_."

"Preach it," Kirk says, half-dead on his feet. "Dunno what to call it."

"What's the worst --"

"Dunno, look, Gary," Kirk begins. He takes Gary by the elbow and leads him down a quieter corridor. "We've got another exam in like, ten minutes and I'm dead, like, I can't keep my eyes open and there's no fucking _coffee_ in this place and I'm not about to buy --"

"Yeah, Jim, come on, I'll blow you before our test," Gary sighs. 

"You're the greatest, you know that?"

"Like cocksucking peas in a pod," Gary sighs, "That's what we are.

*

And that's when things get a little weird -- weird for Kirk, anyway, who -- well -- 

Okay, no, it's that one day after Kirk's nightly fifty-hour study marathon in the library when he goes straight to Gary's room and says, "Honey, I'm home," in a joking tone but Gary walks out with a synthesized _casserole_ that they both stop, put down their PADD/casserole, and go have mean, rough sex on Gary's floor because a _couple_ wouldn't do that -- so they think.

"What kind of casserole was it?" Kirk asks afterwards.

"Chicken and mushroom. Still good, I think."

"Dammit, I am so hungry."

They eat it naked on the floor and don't talk much except to reflect that maybe, just maybe --

"Do we even know if he's a real doctor?" Gary asks. "I bet he's in your room now, some warm nurse in his lap, laughing at how we just got fucking _married_ at his suggestion."

"Dammit, Bones," Kirk hisses. "Gary, it's plotting time."

*

Except they had just fucked and eaten a goddamn _heavy _casserole, which Kirk only puts together when he wakes up curled around Gary's back an hour later.

"Dammit, Bones!" Kirk yells.

"That motherfucker," Gary snarls.

Neither of them mentions that they're lucid and still spooning -- it's cold at night in San Francisco. They're naked and it's reasonable. So.

"The thing about getting revenge is that McCoy doesn't _care_ about anything," Gary says. "Just his kid and -- and _you_."

"What, so I should throw myself off a bridge? Can we avoid that? I mean, unless I bomb my tactics practical tomorrow, because if I fail _that_ I might as well go back to Iowa, and if I have to go back to Iowa --"

"Shut up, you won't fail. Top of our class, remember? You're a stack of sexy books with sexy legs."

"When's the last time you picked up a _book_, Gary?" Kirk laughs, and he's elbowed in the stomach swiftly for his bitchiness.

"Hey," Kirk says after a few minutes of thinking. "Do you think Bones is hot?"

"Uh, _yeah_. Who doesn't? You'd have to be crazy not to... why do you ask?"

"Let's put on some pants and see if he needs some stress relief of his own."

Kirk can hear Gary hum for a moment before he says, "How are we all this attractive? I mean, it kind of defies probability, doesn't it?"

"Fuck, you're such a nerd. Come on, let's go fuck our best friend."

They leave Gary's room with only their briefs on, shove the casserole dish and forks back into the synthesizer, and nonchalantly wave hello to Gary's suitemate as they leave.

*

Kirk lets himself into his room and there, in its natural habitat, they find the elusive Leonard H. McCoy, sitting in their common room like -- like it's a common room.

McCoy sees them and puts his PADD down and his eyebrow up.

"I was wondering whether the upperclassmen would ever pants the living hell out of you two," he remarks.

"Pants us? What century are you living in?" Gary asks. "Though this does concern your classically good looks."

McCoy looks to Kirk, who gives him his best predatory, hungry shark look. 

"Wait a second," McCoy says. "When I said --"

"We're concerned for your welfare," Gary says as he walks over and kneels in front of McCoy's chair.

"Fuck, this is going to be broadcast across the Federation, I can feel it," McCoy groans, except Kirk notices he and Gary are locked in some kind of staring contest.

"That's not a 'no'," Gary says.

"Come on," Kirk says as he sits on the arm of McCoy's chair and turns his face to him. "We _are_ fucking with you, but not... _fucking _with you."

"Translate," McCoy says quietly, his eyes focused on Kirk's mouth.

"We know you need some helping hands and mouths, too," Gary says as he undoes McCoy's fly and reaches up to pull his pants completely off. McCoy lifts without protest, but that may be because his attention is still like, 99.5% on Kirk's mouth.

"Gary and I don't kiss on the mouth," Kirk says. "It's strange. We did at first, but we don't like it."

"We're both toppy kissers; it gets messy," Gary adds conversationally as he smoothes his hand down McCoy's length and wraps his hand around the base. As he leans in, McCoy suddenly snaps to attention and puts a hand on Gary's forehead to stop him. "What?"

"_Condom_?" 

"Are _you_ going to give me something to regret, Saint Leonard of Chastity?" Gary asks. 

"Come on," Kirk says as he places his palm on McCoy's jaw and turns his face again. "It's been _weeks_ since I kissed someone, thanks to your 'cut down on the partners' thing and now I think Gary and I are _married_ but we don't kiss and that's a problem for me."

"I saw you with Gaila yesterday, Jim," McCoy manages to say as Gary's tongue slowly licks up the shaft.

"...so it's only _felt_ like weeks, isn't that good enough?"

McCoy flinches and he and Kirk look down to see Gary slide his mouth off McCoy's dick. "For someone who's being blown and about to get their mouth _thoroughly_ tongue-fucked, you're --"

"And for someone who's _blowing someone_, you're doing way too much of the talking here," Kirk interrupts.

"The less I resist, the quicker we can get to repressing this, right?" McCoy asks, addressing Kirk.

"That's it, there's a ban on talking effective n--" Kirk leans in and presses his lips to McCoy's instead of finishing the sentence, holding McCoy's mouth closed and staring him down until he relaxes, closes his eyes, and Kirk can close his eyes, too, and open his mouth. He's so used to doing five hundred things at once that sex is about the only time he can focus all his energy on one or two things. He inhales deeply and listens to the sounds of the three of them breathing -- Gary's occasional loud exhales as he works McCoy with his mouth, and McCoy holding his breath, waiting for something, maybe waiting for him. Kirk moves his hands to cup both sides of McCoy's jaw and turn his head up, and he exhales through his nose as he finally opens his mouth and touches his tongue to McCoy's slightly parted, totally foreign lips. For someone who nearly swore to repress this before it happened, his mouth opens to Kirk's willingly and his tongue waits in his mouth, meeting Kirk's when it slowly presses its way in. Gary was right -- they're both too aggressive when kissing to really enjoy it, but Leonard's mouth -- he could get used to it, the way he meets Kirk press for press, stroke for stroke, the guy who follows his lead so well he can anticipate his next move and is there just a second before Kirk himself. It may not be about the kissing anymore, so Kirk refocuses and adjusts his hands, letting them travel a little further up into McCoy's hair, gripping gently and tipping his head back a bit so he can reach even deeper into his mouth and explore every centimeter slowly, luxuriously. The feeling's mutual, that desire for slowness, as McCoy wraps his arms around Kirk and pulls him closer, nearly against his chest, and it's a ridiculous scene, the three of them -- Kirk aching as he's bent towards McCoy, his ass still on the arm of the chair and legs hanging off it, Gary on his knees with a cock in his mouth, and McCoy lost in the middle of it all, finally thinking about something besides how Kirk's dick will fall off or whatever else he has to occupy his time.

And just as it settles into some kind of calm, Kirk can feel McCoy tense in his mouth, his arms tighten, and knows he's reaching that point when Gary is digging his fingers and nails into hips and whoever's getting sucked is spreading their thighs as wide as they'll go, offering themselves up to Gary who'll just take it and love it. Kirk glances out from the corner of his eye just in time to see exactly that -- Gary kneel up a little higher as McCoy spreads his thighs wider, Gary taking him deeper with every bob of his head and working his hand around the base, no longer looking to McCoy for approval, but just focusing on the dick in his mouth.

Kirk moves his mouth off McCoy's and leans to one side to lick at his jaw, letting his tongue travel up to one of McCoy's ears so he can bite and suck on the lobe. He feels McCoy gasp a little and latch on to his neck, tongue and teeth sucking a mark there, and Kirk can't help but grin and nip a little harder at McCoy's lobe.

And since McCoy's holding him sturdily, Kirk can let one hand snake away and slide down McCoy's stomach, pressing down on his lower stomach just above his dick and Gary's hand, and the weight there has McCoy open his legs even further and puts him more at Gary's mercy than before.

McCoy's arms suddenly seize up around Kirk and his teeth sink a little deeper into his neck than either of them intended, but Kirk can only laugh and try to nudge McCoy back so he can turn his head to watch Gary, whose hands have moved up to McCoy's lower back and -- finally, he's seizing up and Gary makes a noise as McCoy comes down his throat, and McCoy himself lets out a single, deep-seated moan into Kirk's shoulder, clinging like what seems for dear life until the shockwaves pass.

Kirk runs his fingers through McCoy's hair and looks over his shoulder at Gary, who props his elbows up on McCoy's thighs and grins at Kirk. "So _\-- _he dead yet?" Gary asks.

"Shut up, Mitchell," McCoy says from a trillion miles away. "Fuck, I think you sucked out one of my kidneys. Where'd you get a _mouth_ like that?"

"What about _my_ mouth?" Kirk asks. "I put all that patience and loving into --"

"Style, I give it a nine," McCoy replies. "Content, I'd say a billion. Give or take five."

"I think I love him not making sense," Gary says.

"Come on, old man, let's get you to bed," Kirk says as he climbs out of the chair and fuck, he needs to be the one on his knees next time.

"What about you?" McCoy asks, a little unwilling to let Kirk go.

"I'm good," Kirk replies and then he asks Gary, "You?"

"I could eat again," Gary says. "You?"

"You go for it -- I'm putting the old man to bed."

"All right, but if I come back there to the two of you sleepily talking about decorating, I'm getting the fuck out," Gary warns.

"Promise?" McCoy asks.

"Asshole."

*

"So I have a tactics final tomorrow," Kirk says. He had been on the way to his own bed but stopped short and flopped into McCoy's, and pulled the sheets around him.

"You'll be fine," McCoy says. Kirk looks over his shoulder and watches McCoy take off his shirt and slide into bed next to him so they stay back to back.

"What about you?"

"Xeno-something-or-other," he replies.

"You'll do fine, obviously," Kirk laughs dryly.

"Ugh, you guys," Gary groans from the doorway. "It's like walking in on my parents."

"We're not even touching!" Kirk says as his foot snakes across the bed to rub against McCoy's calf.

"Gross, I'm going back to my room. I'll come get you at 0730, Jim."

"Thanks, Gary," McCoy calls out, his face half buried in a pillow.

"No problem -- you can return the favor tomorrow after cartography."

"I'll be there to watch and touch myself," Kirk says, and he adds, "You guys are the best."

They exchange their good nights and Kirk drifts off to sleep once McCoy half rolls over to cover Kirk's back like the best kind of blanket -- the kind that snores a little against his neck and will probably ask him in the morning whether he needs more condoms from the school clinic.

Yeah. The best kind.


	5. We've got to stop meeting like this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gary keeps running into this guy named Spock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kind of answers the question of where was Spock during allI that Academy crack, but then it dips into something else entirely. Many many many thanks to waldorph and zlot for reading this over and laughing in all the right places and leaving MS Paint drawings where shit needed to be fixed and generally being amazeballs.

There's a lesbian bar not far from Starfleet Academy called Gaila.

Gary has heard 15 different stories as to why the bar is called just GAILA, and they only get more perplexing once Kirk introduces him to Gaila herself.

She's never confirmed or denied the following:

A) that the owner saved her from whatever brutal things Orions are doing to sentient creatures this week, and fell in love with her, but she wouldn't shack up with him so he opened a bar for her.

("Gary, does anyone else know you're this sentimental?")

B) that the bar is actually something like DYKES or FLANNEL or IF YOU LIKE GIRLS AND ALCOHOL COME THROW MONEY AT US, but the city calls it Gaila because once a woman sees Gaila there, they never go back to men and their cocks again.

("Creative and flattering. True? Well.")

C) that Gaila owns the fucking bar.

("I'm so busy with my schoolwork!")

C2) that Gaila's _mother_ owns the fucking bar.

("That does solve a lot of problems.")

D) that Gaila makes a nightly appearance there, gives some kind of performance for women only, and so the bar is just _Gaila_ like the cafeteria is just_the cafeteria_ or Kirk's room is just _Slut Paradise_.

("I'm positive you or Jim would have managed to sneak in already if that were the case.")

Though the night Gary walks in there and sees a pale, long-limbed Vulcan sitting at the bar, he stops giving a fuck about the name of the bar and just thanks _God_ for Gaila.

Gary slowly edges his way towards the Vulcan, making eye contact with his favorite bartender and giving the vague hand signal for "the special, please, and don't charge me because I look like your baby brother."

The drink is waiting for Gary when he finally reaches the Vulcan's elbow.

"So," Gary begins as he takes his drink. "You're quiet."

Gary takes in everything about him: his legs are even longer than he thought, his posture is perfect, his hair slightly ruffled in the back from a wildly gesticulating bride just behind him, and Gary's stomach drops when his head slowly turns and wide brown eyes meet his own.

"This is the only establishment in a six block radius of my apartment that uses fresh, non-synthesized, fruit juice in its concoctions," he replies coolly.

Gary leans over and sniffs a cocktail glass that's nearly empty.

"Buddy, that's not just fruit juice," Gary laughs.

"It takes a significant amount of ethanol to affect my nervous system," the Vulcan reassures him. "Approximately --"

"Don't tell me," Gary interrupts. "I want to find out on my own."

"I do not intend on ever imbibing that many drinks again."

"I can be persuasive." Gary gives the ta'al and says, "Gary Mitchell."

"Spock," he says, returning the gesture. "Thank you for not --"

A drunk girl suddenly throws herself at Spock's back and is automatically thrown right back by a quick backwards flex of his shoulders. 

"You must be a great dancer," Gary remarks. "So what effect does ethanol have on you? I'd like to earn my xenobiology badge for the scouts."

"Cadet, you are too old to be in the scouts," Spock says as another drink arrives. "I suspect you know this, but I thought I would inform you all the same. If your academic curiosity persists: I am not completely Vulcan."

"I thought you moved a little too smoothly," Gary says. He finally succeeds in annoying the massive dyke off the stool next to Spock and sits down happily, leaning on his hand and giving Spock his biggest smile. "Maybe it's just San Francisco being Federation headquarters, but every goddamn Vulcan here has coathangers for collarbones. You seem looser."

"Ethanol does have that slight effect on my biology," Spock replies. "A very weak muscle relaxant."

"So during the day: coathanger?"

"Eventually, _not_ keeping correct posture becomes more painful than correct posture."

"Fascinating," Gary says.

"Why are you here?"

"Waiting for a friend," and really, where _is_ Kirk? Gary wants to simultaneously introduce them to each other and keep Spock to himself forever, so maybe it's for the best that Kirk is running late and giving him a few more minutes in this limbo of pleasant banter. "This week's been tough and sometimes you just _need_ some pussy, you know?"

Gary watches Spock carefully but damn, he's good. He looks at Gary blankly, ticks an eyebrow for a split second, and says blandly, "Indeed."

"Is that an 'indeed' for sympathy or empathy?"

"That is an extremely circumloquacious way of inquiring my sexual orientation," Spock replies. "I appreciate its cleverness."

"But not enough to answer."

"I am not pursuing the development of a sexual relationship at this time, no."

"That's fine," Gary lies because _it is so not fine he wants Spock in him now_. "Like I said. Here for the ladies tonight."

"Mr. Mitchell," Spock begins, "You are aware that this establishment is --"

"Straight girls are here _all the time_," Gary interrupts. He takes a moment to survey what he can see of the room, since Kirk will want to know what it looks like out there the second he arrives. "Sometimes to support their friends, most of the time to get away from the meatheads that molest them in other bars and are too terrified of damaging their fragile masculinity to go to a gay bar, even one where the odds are ridiculously in their favor."

"An astute assessment."

"Plus, women watching women hook up all night are a little more open and pliable and a little _needier_, not quite so -- you know, lowered defenses on pretty much every level." Gary looks back to Spock and adds, "It's not like, preying on anyone. It's just an observation. A woman here for a few hours -- when I show up, she'll --"

"I sympathize with strong-willed women," Spock interrupts. "My mother is very much that kind of woman. As is my…"

"Girlfriend? Wife? Fiancee?"

"Intended," Spock finishes. "Perhaps a little more -- rigid -- than my mother."

"Well, Spock," Gary says, "Losers who aren't surrounded by beautiful people can write the anthropological study exploring this phenomenon of straight men scoring in lesbian bars, but we can live it."

"You may," Spock says. "If you will excuse me for a moment."

"Sure, sure," Gary says with a slight wave. He sips his drink and over the rim watches Spock walk towards the bathrooms. He puts his drink down and is about to follow him when there's a fierce clap on his shoulder and he's turned around on his stool. Kirk's face awaits.

"So what's it look like out there?" he yells over the music.

"Dammit, Jim," Gary sighs. "Bridal parties at five, two, and seven o'clock."

"Which do you want to hit first? Give me your evaluation, Cadet!"

Eventually, he forgets about Spock.

*

Gary runs into Spock again outside a toy store.

Technically, they're both outside a toy store; Gary is outside Maurice's Playland and Spock is outside Andre's Playground.

Gary walks over and grins at Spock. "The owners of these shops _must_ be in cahoots together," Gary remarks. "Putting a sex shop and a toy shop across from each other."

"The proprietors are older gentlemen from West Algeria," Spock says. "Married to each other -- so, yes, I believe this layout is both convenient and amusing for them."

"I wonder how many kids have stood in the middle of the street and demanded a train-shaped buttplug instead of an actual model train," Gary muses.

"I have heard of two occurrences," Spock says and he clarifies when Gary raises his eyebrows dangerously. "My father often had business in San Francisco when I was a child."

"You were one of those kids," Gary gasps. "No -- shut up -- really? Did you -- which did you get?"

"Good afternoon, Cadet," Spock replies. He walks away from Gary, who watches him go and tries not to sigh audibly.

"At least tell me what color it was!" Gary calls after him.

*

There's a Betazoid quartet performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gary runs into Spock during intermission.

"I wonder that humans can appreciate the telepathic component of the Betazoid performers," Spock says as Gary orders himself a cocktail the size of the symphony hall itself.

"You're such a snob," Gary laughs once he has his drink in both hands. "You mean can we poor stupid humans appreciate the projections of the performers? It doesn't fake a full-blown telepath to appreciate the sensations of pride and accomplishment, a self-aware appreciation of beauty, and that second harp player is harboring distinctly unprofessional feelings for the conductor."

Spock stares at Gary for a moment before Gary rolls his eyes and says, "High Esper ratings. Like, Starfleet knows what the top of the chart looks like because of my scores. And there are telepaths in my family. Don't be a snob. It happens in humans sometimes."

"Indeed," Spock says.

"Indeed you've just been schooled?" Gary asks with a grin.

Spock gives a slight nod of his head and Gary laughs as he drinks some more.

"Your shields are excellent," Spock adds. "I sense very little bleeding through of your emotions."

"Well, _yeah_," Gary replies. "Only had it, uh, my entire life."

"You're mocking me," Spock says with some astonishment.

"Ha, yeah, I do that." Gary puts his drink down and uses the straws because it's seriously putting a strain on his arms and he's not drinking fast enough to lighten the load. "I think I'm also a little empathic, which _doesn't_ run in my family, to our knowledge."

"Indeed?"

"Well, our friend -- me and Jim, friend from the bar you didn't meet --"

"I had a previous engagement," Spock explains.

"Sure, anyway, me and Jim and our friend Bones -- well Bones is just about the -- he's that guy whose eye is always twitching from stress and rage and you're always a little pleased when you meet for lunch and he hasn't murdered forty people yet -- which, actually, would be much easier for him considering he's a doctor, so let's up it to eighty."

"Hardly seems like a psychological profile befitting a doctor."

"Or the best kind of doctor," Gary retorts. "Objective as hell, smart as anything, just. Abrasive, so you know he means it."

"And your empathy…"

"My empathy, right, well, he's older than us by a year or two or five -- than me and Jim -- so he worries all the time, but he stops when I'm around and, you know, _willing him_ to calm the fuck down, or I touch him and I feel it bleed into me, so _I_ get pissed off and go to the gym for an hour, but he's calm as a kitten for a night."

"That does suggest empathic abilities," Spock agrees. "I had thought my mother was, if not unique, then very rare, for her exceptional Esper ratings."

"Oh, I'm sure loads of people -- loads of humans -- have it, but -- well, take my friend Jim again. Pretty high ratings, somewhere in the low 80s, but he doesn't do anything about it, and I think he's a much better empath than I am, but he just writes it off as charm, and buddy -- you can be charming, but not _that_ charming."

"That is not surprising," Spock says.

"What?"

"Should his empathic abilities be made a matter of public record, it would impact his Starfleet career, would it not? Allowances would be made, and he would no longer be a marvel to be wondered at, but an intelligent empath."

"That's cynical," Gary notes.

"As a telepath and a member of the faculty at Starfleet, I can assure you there would be no benefits in the curriculum to your friend revealing his empathic abilities -- he would have to travel off-world in order to learn how to enhance his gifts from natural empaths."

"As it is, he'll be a great starship captain who'll charm the hell out of sentient creatures left and right."

"That -- yes."

The lights flash and Gary sighs at how much of his drink he still has left, fucking Spock.

"Nice running into you again," Gary says.

"The feeling is mutual." Spock nods slightly and heads back to his seat. Gary watches him go and then turns back to his drink, downing as much as he can before he has to really head back to his seat.

*

Spock is made for Gary's attention span -- for ten or fifteen minutes, he's overcome by this presence, which then disappears, leaving Gary to pine for another ten minutes and move on to his next conquest or obsession without a second thought.

Of course, once he begins looking for Spock, he notices Spock is -- well -- everywhere.

Like that classroom (not a lecture hall, but a very small, intimate classroom) in Pulaski Hall as Gary walks by one afternoon. He does a double take and strolls inside, and there's Spock in his full officer's uniform, which might be enough to dry out Gary's mouth completely.

"Lieutenant…?"

"Commander," Spock says, his eyes flicking to the faint black stripes on his black sleeves.

"Of course. How stupid of me." Gary realizes he's dumb struck, remembers he doesn't _get_ dumbstruck, and motions out the door with his thumb. "I'm late for a meeting in 245. Walk with me?"

"My next engagement is in the opposite direction," Spock says.

"Oh." Gary taps his fingers against his leg and asks, "What do you teach?"

"Here, I teach Advanced Phonology. I also teach a larger class in ethics."

"Neither are in my specialty -- I guess I'll never have you," Gary sighs. He shuffles his foot slightly and then gives Spock his most diabolical grin. Spock only raises an eyebrow slightly.

"Your meeting, Cadet?"

"Commander," Gary says with the slightest nod.

They part ways outside the classroom and Gary looks back briefly as he laughs to himself.

*

"Jim's too much of a gent to ask, so I have to," Gary begins when they're all about four champagne cups into Christine Chapel's engagement party. "Is Chapel knocked up?"

McCoy, to his credit, doesn't sputter but only raises an eyebrow slowly as he sips from his cup. "Christine --" he finally begins.

"Whoa, she's _Christine_ now," Kirk slurs. Gary puts an arm around his shoulders and lets him lean because for Kirk, the party started as soon as his last class of the week was over. At three o'clock in the afternoon.

"Christine's old fashioned about things," McCoy says.

"What's _that_ got to do with anything?" Kirk yells, half at McCoy and half into Gary's shoulder.

"She's _old fashioned_," he repeats. "And Korby's leaving for a three-year mission in a few days…"

"Oh my God," Gary chokes. "She's -- how could you let that _happen_? We raised you better than that, doctor!"

"I don't get it, why is she a drink," Kirk asks.

"She's a _virgin_," Gary hisses back.

Kirk bursts out laughing and tries to squirm away in order to inform the bride-to-be of this, but Gary sets his cup down and keeps both arms around Kirk. "Come on, it's not that funny. You were a virgin once, too."

"Not since I was like, a baby," Kirk replies. "I was _born_ fucking."

"Hand him over, Gary, I'll go put him to bed," McCoy sighs as he puts his drink down.

"Yeah, Bones!" Kirk yells. "Put me to bed _hard_, and --" Kirk grunts and Gary tilts his head a little to watch a violent red blush creep up McCoy's neck, "That thing you do with your --"

Gary watches McCoy manhandle Kirk into the back rooms of the house, and then decides to grab another drink because 'putting Jim down' takes a little longer than he expects, most of the time.

He grabs a cup and notices the person next to him presently pouring champagne into his glass.

"So. Bride or groom?" Gary asks.

Spock looks over, ticks his eyebrow up slightly, and hands the bottle to Gary. "I was not aware the terminology applied to the couple before the wedding itself."

"It probably doesn't, but I don't know how to orally distinguish between fiancé and fiancée," Gary replies. "Chapel or Korby?"

"Dr. Korby," Spock replies. "He supervised an independent study project of mine when I was a cadet. We remained close. And you?"

"The booze." Gary sips and clarifies, "My friend McCoy is a doctor over on the Med campus. He and Chapel work together, and he dragged me and my friend Jim along."

"Yes, your friend Jim -- I believe I heard his cackling when I arrived."

"It's Thursday, he has no classes on Friday, so he starts the weekend early."

"You have a detailed knowledge of his schedule," Spock remarks.

"Ha, do I?" Gary asks. "We all know each other's schedules. Kind of the best part of every August -- get together with a few dozen beers and your friends, plot out your schedules for the semester. I mean, you could let those patterns just form, but we like to be practical about it."

"I was quite unaware of that aspect of cadet behavior," Spock says. "I did not live in the dormitories when I was a cadet."

"Ooh, lucky," Gary says. "The three or four of us -- Jim, McCoy, me, and whatever lucky fourth can stand us, so maybe Gaila -- were thinking of getting a house or apartment off campus next year, but. Well, who knows. Campus is kind of fun."

"Perhaps you can inform me of what I have been deprived of by not living in the dormitories as a student," Spock says.

"Nothing you can't get in even bigger doses off campus," Gary laughs. "Sleeping with your hallmates, crowded showers, the hysterics of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, no privacy -- okay, off campus housing might be an amazing thing to look into."

"It's a wonder you are able to focus on your studies with all those distractions."

"What about on Vulcan? How do the most practical people in the Federation deal with being young, hormonal, and crowded into confined spaces together for four to six years?"

"As I only lived in the dormitories during those early years of my education --"

"How early?"

"Until I was eleven. Five to eleven. Vulcan children are still -- developing their logic. My mother informs me they are very much like humans at that age."

"Kids are assholes," Gary says. "I should know, I was one. A child _and_ an asshole."

"Indeed?"

"Oh yeah, I was a total bully," Gary replies. "Kids made fun of me, you know, weird telepathy thing, and then I got an early growth spurt and it was just easy to beat them up _and_ be the mind-reading freak."

Spock was quiet and sipped his champagne. "If you will excuse me, I have not congratulated --"

"Now, Spock, come on, I'm not like that anymore," Gary protests. "And yeah, it's petty and everything but -- you know -- I was a kid."

"I do have to congratulate the couple on their engagement."

"You do, but you're an awful liar."

"How can that be a lie if you just admitted it to be the truth?"

"…shut up, it just is."

Spock presses his lips together and walks off towards Chapel and Korby, leaving Gary to drink his champagne even quicker and pour himself another cup. McCoy strolls up a few moments after that and pours himself a fresh glass.

"This shit is like lighter fluid," McCoy says.

"Not like you can afford better," Gary says.

"Now who bunched up your panties while I was gone? You're too drunk to be this bitchy."

"Not drunk _enough_," Gary sighs. "No, just some guy. Totally don't get him." Gary looks at McCoy and adds, "By the way, don't let a drunk guy clean you up after a handjob. There's a reason Jim's passed out in a spare room and not doing brain surgery right now."

"Dammit," McCoy sighs when he notices the front of his pants. "Hold this."

Gary drinks his champagne and McCoy's, and tries not to bore holes into Spock's back too deeply.

*

_WE ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST CLUB_

_SHUT UP_

_great now uhura is mad i hope you're happy_

_THE MORE YOU PAY ATTENTION THE QUICKER YOU'LL GET THE FUCK OUT_

"That is not necessarily true," a calm voice says over his shoulder. Gary jumps and, of course, it's Spock. "Forgive me, your PADD was in my line of vision."

"That's not even a little bit true," Gary says.

"Why are you hovering outside the meeting rather than participating?" Spock asks.

"Waiting for my friend Jim," Gary says. The door of the classroom that the Starfleet Xenolinguistics Club appropriated for its emergency meeting has a window in front of which Gary can hover threateningly. He points Kirk out and says, "That's him. He's the treasurer."

"_That_ is your friend Jim?" Spock asks as he stares through the glass. He seems to be giving it way more thought than Gary expected. "Suddenly, I -- many things make sense."

"Oh?" Gary asks.

"The club's president, Cadet Uhura --" And Spock points her out, somehow using only a slight motion of his chin, "Is my aide for Advanced Phonology. She is --"

"Ha, yeah, we _know_ Uhura all right," Gary laughs.

"Do you?" Spock asks, an eyebrow slightly arched.

"Oh yeah, she was on the shuttle that first took me, Jim, and McCoy to Starfleet. Actually, it's an amazing story --"

"You," Spock says, and he genuinely can't keep the astonishment out of his voice that time. "She -- yes, you are the three cadets and -- you had_intercourse_ in the bathroom. _Loudly._ With that cadet. The one who -- why is he yelling?"

"Small world," Gary laughs. "Smaller shuttle, I think. But yeah, Jim and I -- we hit it off right away." Gary watches Spock carefully and says, "I just blew your mind, didn't I?"

"Not literally, but yes, you have profoundly shocked me at the -- incestuous nature of Starfleet Academy relations."

"Can't be surprising, I mean: we're the best of the best, in all the same classes, similar interests, complementary specialties -- we're all bound to run into each other and fuck each other at some point."

Spock says, "I cannot agree with that assessment entirely."

"Come on," Gary says with his best grin. "Jim and I cover a lot of ground. If it's not me, it'll be him. Or Gaila -- do you know Gaila? Sweet girl, she's --"

"Cadet, if you will excuse me. Please inform Cadet Uhura she should message me when she is through here."

Spock is gone and a minute later, the meeting is dismissed and Gary sighs.

When Kirk finally steps in the hallway, Gary gives him a shove in the shoulder. "I saw that -- you knew Breakfast Club was happening but you kept yapping on like Doctor Pancake Fascist won't order without us."

"I was doing you a favor!" Kirk shrieks. "You were giving that Vulcan guy the 'fuck my mouth, please' face and I thought a few more minutes would help you out!"

"It's not like that," Gary sighs, and then he sees Uhura leave the room. "Hey, Uhura, your Vulcan was looking for you."

"My _what_?" she asks, the tips of her hair hitting Kirk in the face when she spins around.

"Dammit, keep that shit in check, it's like a fucking weapon," Kirk snaps.

"Honey, you really need to start eating breakfast earlier if you're just going to get snippy during meetings," Uhura informs him. "And no, I'm not on McCoy's pre-approved list of 'things you can eat', you pervert, so don't ask."

"I didn't even say anything! God! See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila on your bed."

"See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila without you in the room."

"I -- was not aware that was an option," Kirk says, all the anger gone out of him suddenly. "Tell me more."

"Were you saying something?" Uhura asks Gary. "About Commander Spock? Who, by the way, is not interested in you."

"You don't know that," Gary retorts.

"I'm his aide. Believe me. I know. He is not, and never will be, hitting that," she says as she looks him up and down.

"Why am I the only one who doesn't know this guy?" Kirk asks. "I hate being left out of shit. Who _has_ nailed him?"

"Let me check the wiki I keep of my adviser's sexual partners, oh wait. I'm not a _creep_ like you are, _Cadet_."

"Uhura, you should come to Breakfast Club with us," Gary says. "Gaila's there, so it's a safe space, and McCoy should keep Jim in check."

"Bones doesn't keep me in check," Kirk protests.

"Wow, you like, broke out in a little bit of a sweat _as you said that_," Uhura laughs. "That's so. I've never seen anyone so completely _owned_."

"Would you give her the message about her exotic sex toy already so I can get some fucking pancakes into my mouth?" Kirk asks Gary.

"What message?" Gary asks.

"You're impossible! Both of you!" Uhura shrieks.

"He just wanted you to know he was looking for you, for fuck's sake," Gary says. He nudges Uhura in the arm and motions to the door leading outside. "Breakfast? Come on, the Commander was really impressed at how we're all one big happy family… who happens to have a lot of hot, sweaty sex with each other."

"Sweet of you to say, but I'm not part of that family," Uhura replies as they exit the building and head for the usual breakfast spot. "I haven't had whatever aphrodisiac your group insists on getting intravenously --"

"Sex is stress relief, according to our doctor, and I'll have you remember that we did better than you in that ethics class last semester," Kirk notes in between violating passers-by with his glances. "You know, the one you were offended we were even able to take because we were just baby first years and, well, that's just _embarrassing_ for you, isn't it?"

"You may be a genius," Uhura says, "But I work hard, harder than anyone I know, and I dread the day you're in command of a starship and need to get a blow job before you can even think of handling a crisis."

"Know what, just for that? You should be my comm officer during my Kobayashi Maru test," Kirk says.

"Oh, don't even -- don't you dare put my name on that list."

"It's 'don't you dare put my name on that list, _Captain_.'"

Uhura lets out a guttural, frustrated moan and shoves the door of the breakfast place open, making a beeline for the empty chair next to Gaila. "Your friends _suck_," she informs her roommate.

"Oh, sweetie, you just don't know them like I do," Gaila coos as she pulls Uhura in for a hug and lets her lean against her chest. "Hi Jim, hi Gary," she calls over Uhura's head. "Like, for example, did you know that sucking on that mole right beneath Jim's right ear --"

"Tell the world, Gaila," McCoy sighs as he looks around for a waitress.

"Like the world doesn't know," Uhura replies.

"Everyone needs to leave my mole alone," Kirk announces.

"Gary has a much better secret about his shoulder blades," Gaila begins.

"_Everyone_ knows about Gary's shoulder blades," Kirk replies. "Gaila, do better."

"What about you, sweetie?" Gaila asks Uhura. "Should I tell them about your --"

"NO," Uhura says as she sits up straight. "Roommate confidentiality, you tell them nothing about --"

"Speaking of roommates," Kirk begins, "Uhura mentioned something about the three of us maybe --"

"Oh, this is so exciting! Are you finally up for the three-way?" Gaila asks Uhura excitedly. "I knew you would come around!"

"You talked to her about it?" Kirk asks as Gary watches his eyes almost fill up with joyful tears. "Gaila, I just -- you are the greatest."

"We are not having a three-way!" Uhura shrieks into one of those sudden silences that had just permeated the entire restaurant as she spoke.

"All right," says their usual gruff waitress, who chose that moment to sidle up to the table. "You're not having a three-way. Can I recommend an omelet?"

"It's best to carb up before strenuous physical activity," Gaila says, "And Jim is very much a strenuous --"

"Bowl of fruit, two eggs scrambled, lunar toast, a seat away from these maniacs," Uhura says.

"I kind of love our horrible friends," Gary says to McCoy quietly.

"No talking until we all order," McCoy snaps. "Dammit, stay on _point_, Mitchell."

"Yup," Gary says to himself. "Love them all."

*

The Battle of Vulcan happens in what turns out to be their final year due to the decimation of the student body and an intense case of terminal field promotions.

Gary and Gaila ended up on the USS _Proxima_ and, like not enough others, manned an escape shuttle out of the wreckage of too many starships and were picked up by an Andorian ship on its way to the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system.

They're on the bridge of the _Harrison_, Gary charting the Romulan ship's potential trajectories and the routes for each of the remaining starships to take back to Earth while Gaila argues with the engineering chief (who is an ageist and a speciest and a sexist and an _asshole_), when Gary thinks his brain has died because the air is filled with Spock's voice. The _Enterprise._

"A Vulcan?" the main communications officer asks before even replying to Spock. "Where's Captain Pike?"

"Yes, I am a Vulcan and, as I said thirty-seven seconds ago, Acting Captain Spock of the USS _Enterprise_."

The _Harrison_'s viewscreen comes alive and there's Spock, sitting in the captain's chair, tense as anything and looking -- well, looking like hell.

"Captain Malik," Spock adds with a nod.

"Captain, report, what is Enterprise's status? We heard from the officers who have managed to reach the rendezvous point that there was a battle in Vulcan airspace with a Romulan ship."

"There was," Spock says slowly, "With the result that every ship dispatched but the _Enterprise_ was destroyed, as was the planet itself."

"Commander," Malik replies just as slowly. "Explain."

"_Enterprise_ is presently en route to the rendezvous point, where I will issue a full report of the events that transpired," Spock says. "We will shut down all but essential communications and services in order to reach the rendezvous point in a timely manner, with our remaining power favoring the weakened engines. However, the bare facts are true: the five dispatched starships and their crew were destroyed, as was the planet Vulcan. Captain Pike has been taken hostage by Nero of the Romulan ship. Please pass these facts along to Starfleet and await a more detailed report upon our arrival. Spock out."

It's all silent then, except for their equipment, and the communications officer opens a channel to Starfleet, stammering the entire time because it's_five ships_, all cadets, fucking gone. Not gone -- _destroyed_, which has implications of there, in pieces, wreckage and bodies just out there, going where ever space takes them.

Malik orders Gary and Gaila both to take a break when they've been there seven hours straight, and Gary's temporary new bunkmate seems to see the look in his and Gaila's eyes because he gets the fuck out the minute they arrive.

They go through the motions of fucking, but Gary stops and lowers his face to Gaila's chest, and he cries like he hasn't since he was a kid.

"It's all right, my breasts are here for you," Gaila says as she rubs his back soothingly. "And so is my mind, of course, but you seem to be very relieved that my breasts are here."

"Six _billion_ people on Vulcan, Gaila," Gary mumbles, half his mouth against her skin, "And I'm -- and the _Enterprise_ is okay and _that's_ all I'm worried about. Jim -- if Spock can get a transmission through, maybe we can comm them, and I mean, McCoy got one through earlier, you know, telling me he snuck Jim on board so now --"

"They're all right," Gaila soothes. "The hard part was surviving the horrific firefight, wasn't it? And we did that, and the _Enterprise_ did that, so we'll all be fine now. There's this wonderful brothel on Laurent IX and a cousin of mine --" 

"Yeah," Gary agrees, more to himself than to Gaila, doing the math, endlessly doing the math -- six starships, 1500 people on each, the variable being that Romulan ship -- insufficient data, and he's fucking tired, so he gives up on thinking and pulls Gaila a little closer. "Yeah, Jim's okay, and McCoy _has_ to be, and even your bitch of a roommate. God, she's not even a bitch, she's too smart and dignified for our stupid asses, I don't even know why she hangs around us."

"She finds you all very immature and challenging," Gaila says. "Or was that a rhetorical question?"

"It was both, thanks," Gary says, a little slurry with sleep and it's the last thing he remembers, Gaila rubbing a hand between his shoulder blades and kind of sniffling in his hair.

When Gary wakes up, Gaila is still there, one hand still on his back, one hand in his hair, both of them completely wrapped up in each other and fuck, what would he have done without a friend like her? He listens to her sleep for a few more moments and then nods off again, that battle Spock mentioned a few lifetimes ago when he commed on the bridge apparently content to go on without them.

But the _Enterprise_ never makes its rendezvous, and Gary remembers that as the last time he sleeps for a week.

*

It turns out the _Enterprise_ is okay, just -- not at the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system. The _Harrison_ gets back to Earth before the_Enterprise_, on the day the drill is hauled out of the Pacific.

"This little white ship, man, just flew in and zapped the chain and then flew out again," someone tells him and Gaila as they watch cranes borrowed from the Portland shipyard stretch out the drill and chain on the lawn outside the Academy library.

They spend their time until the _Enterprise_ arrives at Earth spacedock in the Academy's labs analyzing the little data the ship is able to send on its slow trek back to Earth. Classwork, exams, what? It's a week-long practical final that will pretty much determine What the Federation Does Next, and it comes down to people like Gary and Gaila -- people who weren't injured badly enough to be recovering in Medical, or undergoing intensive counseling, or on the five starships, or are still patrolling the neutral zone in case the Klingons want to start shit.

Their supervisor, a Betazoid who's technically a linguist but hiding out in their lab because Gary and Gaila aren't telepathically trying to kill her with their sadness, turns the viewscreen to Federation news when someone on the lawn outside screams about the _Enterprise_ arriving in spacedock.

Gary clutches Gaila's hand when the cameras capture what's left of the crew filing out from the ship to the shuttles back to Earth -- not enough operations and security crew, certainly not as many as a Constitution-class ship should have. They're led by a guy in a red shirt with a huge fur coat over one arm and a huge smile on his face, and Gary doesn't have enough functioning brain cells to put any of _that_ together into something coherent.

There's a completely broken baby science staff (like anyone can blame them), all of them dragging their feet and looking around for people, unsure of where they're going, really.

There's the command staff emptying the upper decks, looking harried but again, okay. Relieved. Making each other laugh and yeah, that's relief on all their faces, and pure fucking glee.

What's left of medical consists of McCoy pushing Pike's wheelchair and snarling at any cameras that come within ten feet of them, Chapel leading several Vulcan elders down the ramp as she resolutely refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and a handful of doctors and nurses. Just a handful -- Gary counts twelve total. Gary wonders what the fuck happened there -- it must be why McCoy never commed to mention that, in addition to sneaking Kirk on board, they survived everything and Kirk and Spock kind of saved the world.

"Oh, there they are!" Gaila says as she spots the bridge crew emerge. Gary counts the right number of science, command, and operations officers -- he sees Uhura walking with -- shit, with Sulu, who was already on his way out of the Academy when his own class arrived but was still trudging through a doctorate in astrofuckitall, and Chekov, a curly-haired prepubescent in Uhura and Gaila's year with a nasty habit of table dancing with the drunkest person at any given party and turning down offers to work for every private organization in the Federation because he has _Starfleet or bust_(metaphorically, please only metaphorically) tattooed on his lower back.

Finally, there's Kirk and Spock.

"They're all right," Gary chokes out. "Jim's okay, he's okay."

"Of course he is," Gaila says as she throws her arms around Gary's neck, and they try to hug and watch the screen simultaneously. "Oh! Viewscreen, center focus." Gaila tilts her head and laughs. "That's -- Nyota's adviser! Who she was, you know."

"Oh my God, they _were_?" Gary laughs as he discreetly wipes his eyes, keeping his arm firmly around Gaila's waist. "She _lied_. Remember the first time she came to breakfast with us?"

"Oh, they weren't then -- it's only been in the last few weeks." Gaila looks at Gary and adds, "Funny how long ago that seems."

"Sad, Gaila, not funny."

"Can't it be both?" she asks.

"I guess," he says as he chokes out a short laugh of complete and utter relief.

They turn back to the screen, Kirk and Spock still the focus of the particular feed they're watching. They're totally lost in their conversation, Kirk's trillion-watt grin being broadcast across the Federation while Spock looks down at the ground and leans into Kirk's space, occasionally whispering into Kirk's ear as they walk down the ramp.

"They are so going to fuck," Gary says. Their supervisor looks appalled and turns to the screen again to avoid listening to him. "I mean, Jim is going to bang him into a parallel universe."

"He's never looked at Nyota like that," Gaila remarks. "And Jim's never looked at me like that."

"Well, not at your eyes."

She nudges him in the shoulder and they laugh.

"We should go meet the shuttle," Gary says.

"Along with everyone else on Earth," Gaila replies.

"You're right. Let's go to the bar. They'll find us there."

*

Gary and Gaila are asleep in their usual bar, in their usual booth. Gary holed up in the corner and stretched out so Gaila could lie on him, and fuck, that worked surprisingly well. They wake up when the table rattles because McCoy has thrown himself into the seat across from them.

"Leonard!" Gaila shrieks. "Gary, wake up, we have to hug Leonard!"

Gaila runs around and slides in next to McCoy who, for the first time in Gary's whole fucking life, hugs someone back as fiercely as he's being hugged.

"Thought you and Mitchell were done for with the rest, you should have commed."

"And you!" Gaila shrieks as she pries herself off McCoy and slaps his arms and chest. "You! Should! Have! Commed! And -- and -- _Leonard_!"

Gary orders another pitcher and third glass for McCoy, and settles in to watch the play that's just started in front of him, succinctly entitled, "Starfleet cadets celebrate being alive by removing each other's tonsils in public."

*

Uhura shows up, but there's no making out, not even crying, just a round of whiskeys for the table.

"So you survived," Gary says when she's on her second drink.

"Yup," she says.

"Is 'yup' the correct terminology for the emotions you're feeling right now?" Gary asks.

She spends fifteen minutes explaining why it's actually the perfect word of all the ones she could have chosen, and Gary's glad to have distracted her, if only for fifteen minutes.

Sulu and Chekov show up and decide to start doing doubles of shots of some vodka only Chekov can pronounce, and Gary kind of just wants to push the curls out of Chekov's face every time he throws one back and his cheeks get a little more flushed.

"He's seventeen," McCoy informs the table with a look towards Chekov. "No one try anything."

"I lost my virginity in a drinking contest to a pair of twins in Moscow when I was fifteen," Chekov informs them. "Shut up, doctor."

"Like… you wrote an IOU on a card and they misplaced it?" McCoy asks hopefully.

"Hector and Marina from Portugal," Chekov corrects. "I could not walk for two days."

"I think Jim needs to give up his heavyweight belt to you," Gary says.

"But -- the orgy -- there were seven of us!" Gaila protests.

"Yeah, but we were all in our _twenties_. He was _fifteen_," Gary replies.

"We'll see when Jim gets here," Gaila says, because there's a literal belt and she likes to wear it naked sometimes.

"I'll just get Jim a new belt," Sulu finally says. "I kind of, you know, owe him my life. If he wants to --"

"How?" Gary asks. "How'd he save your life? What the fuck _happened_ up there, by the way? You guys keep shitty logs when you're busy saving the galaxy."

"I will fucking tell you everything, Gary Mitchell," Sulu says, "And I even put some of it into rhyme because it was a fucking slow trip back from_Saturn_ on impulse engines, and I was the designated driver, you know."

They buy another round of shots and drink to Jim, who has saved all of their lives in one way or another over the past three years, and who will probably do it again in the years to come because it's kind of his thing now, isn't it?

*

They've been in the bar all fucking day and most of the night when Kirk finally walks in, showered and wearing his most beat up jeans and worn out t-shirt that has a hole near his ribs. Most of them are too drunk to stand, except Kirk has walked in and it's Gaila with her ultra metabolism that climbs out of the booth again to run into his arms and shriek gleefully that he's alive and a hero and wonderful and alive.

"Fuck, you bastard, you gave us a scare," Gary says when he finally lifts himself out of the booth and makes his way over to Kirk.

"And you, you son of a bitch," Kirk murmurs near Gary's ear, and he even bites him on the lobe while he laughs. "Way to not even comm us, you know, just a little note --"

"We went through this with McCoy already, jeez, I get it, I'll call next time, _Mom_," Gary laughs.

"What's a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!" he yells over Gary's shoulder, and Gary holds him all the tighter for another moment before turning back to the table.

"Wasn't that _sweet_," McCoy drawls.

"You better be liquored up, Bones, because I'm going to be on your lap in five minutes and staying there 'til dawn, okay?"

"Can't wait," McCoy sighs while everyone laughs.

"Hey, where's Spock?" Gary asks as Kirk pours himself a pint. "I saw the two of you on the feed, thought. Well. I don't know."

"Spock," Kirk sighs, his eyes trained on the bottom of his glass. "He's -- I told him where we were. I don't know, man. Guess he's with his dad." Kirk takes a sip and says, "We lost his mom when Vulcan imploded, but his dad's okay. He's alive. So. I really don't know. But I told him we'd --"

"Spock," Uhura interrupts, but she's looking at the door.

Gary turns and there he is. He's spotted them and makes his way over, and Uhura rushes out of the booth to meet him. He puts a hand up, then softens and rests his hand on her shoulder for a second. Gary watches Spock's eyes flick to his own in recognition, and notes everyone else that's with them, but they finally settle on Kirk. Gary lets go of Kirk and lets Spock enter his personal space and whisper near his ear something like:

"I cannot grieve as my father does."

"Understood," Kirk replies. "What gets you drunk?"

"Mudslides," Uhura supplies helpfully, and then looks into her shot of whiskey like she didn't say anything.

"I find that particular drink has the correct proportions of ethanol and --"

"Round of mudslides, please, over here," Kirk calls out.

"I've been waiting for this since the day I met you," Gary comments to Spock over Kirk. Kirk turns on him and raises his eyebrows.

"You know Spock?"

"Are you fucking me?" Gary asks.

Spock replies simultaneously, "The cadet and I are well acquainted."

"He -- fuck, never mind, it's a long story," Gary sighs. He slides back into the booth, next to Sulu and Chekov, while Kirk and Spock drag chairs over and position themselves at the head of the table. "So."

Their mudslides (particularly laden with ethanol for the humans, all of them with frozen chocolate on the rim) arrive and Gary blacks out after that.

*

He wakes up at the bar, face pressed against his folded arms, mouth wide open and drool all over his sleeves. He blinks slowly and looks around without picking up his head, which is sure to try and murder him with the hangover of his _life_ the minute he does.

Everyone else in their group also slept in the booth, somehow -- even McCoy, who will bitch about his neck and back until kingdom fucking come (maybe not, since he's using most of Gaila's chest as a pillow), and they're all still asleep.

Except for Kirk and Spock at the head of the table. At some point, Kirk turned his chair around and folded his arms on the back so he could rest his head and listen to Spock. Spock sits upright in his chair, shoulders straight, hands in his lap, head bowed slightly as he speaks softly to Kirk. Kirk replies in a hushed tone, full of sibilants and so very gravelly -- 

"Since when do you speak Vulcan?" Gary asks incredulously.

Kirk lifts his head and blinks at Gary, and for a minute, Gary would swear Kirk had no idea who he was, or had forgotten he was there.

"Yeah," he says. "Go back to sleep, okay?"

Gary burrows back into his arms and stares at Kirk and Spock for another moment until his eyelids slip closed and finally stay shut.

*

Kirk shows up at Gary's dorm room one morning and says:

"The _Enterprise_ is mine. Can I count on you to be my first?"

Gary tilts his head because it's a Saturday and Kirk isn't actually smiling that much when he asks.

"No way," Gary laughs like Kirk has just asked him to help him move without beer or something equally ridiculous.

"Wait, what?" Kirk asks. "Did you just say no?"

"I want my own ship someday," Gary says, "and if I come with you now, I'm never going to get it."

"You don't know --"

"Besides, they've got stuff for me to do down here until the _Exeter_ is ready to head out and patrol with you. Someone's got to figure out what the hell to do with that singularity you guys left next to Saturn," Gary laughs.

"Gary," Kirk sighs as he rubs a hand along his face. "What the fuck am I going to do without you? Who the fuck --"

"You shithead," Gary says. "Did you really not notice?"

"Notice what?"

"That there's a Vulcan out there, with amazing abs and a to-die-for bone structure, who is never going to be _anyone_ else's first while you're around. Go get him and leave me alone. I've got company."

"Really?" Kirk leers. "Anyone I know?"

"Get the fuck out." Gary grins and shoves Kirk in the shoulder, and steps back into his room.

"I made pancakes and ate them," Gaila announces when he walks back into the kitchen. "I left you some batter, but you should make more. Or synthesize them."

Gary looks at the mess in the kitchen and considers his options.

"You're not going with Jim?" she asks.

"Are you?" he asks.

"He already has a chief of engineering," Gaila says matter-of-factly. "I wouldn't settle for anything less."

"Good," Gary says. "Can I call dibs on you now?"

"Only if you really do get the _Exeter_," she considers. "If they change their minds and give you the _Hood_, I'll leave forever."

"Good to know," Gary laughs.


	6. The No-win Scenario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota fondly remembers her first year at Starfleet Academy as being the last normal year of her life. Then, second year, everything changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... don't even remember how this started? But needless to say, waldorph was there egging it on the entire time.
> 
> This chapter is explicit/NC-17!

Nyota fondly remembers her first year at Starfleet Academy as being the last normal year of her life.

Then, second year, everything changes: she changes her rooming assignment so she's sharing a suite with her friend Gaila from her Introduction to Interplanetary Relations class; they're _finally_ offering Beginning Illyrian with a native speaker; the sexist douchebag who taught Interspecies Ethics was awarded a post on some colony and was replaced with _the. most. gorgeous._ instructor she had seen to date (sorry, Captain Pike); and those hicks from the Riverside shuttle actually survive the first week of classes, which means they want to make friends, specifically with _her_.

It's a mixed bag of the amazing and the horrible, but she can handle it.

Maybe.

"Jason, it's not a problem," she sighs during lunch on the quad one day early in the semester. Jim Kirk is in their Interspecies Protocol class, and announced his presence by standing at the bottom of the lecture hall and yelling, "Cupcake! Baby!" at the top of his lungs before running up the steps to sit behind him and Nyota.

"He still calls me Cupcake," Jason grumbles. "But for you, baby, I didn't slam his face into a desk. Just for you."

She stares at him for a moment and smiles stiffly before she says, "That's so considerate of you. Really."

"Are you being ironic?"

"Am I?" she asks. "Cupcakes are delicious. I don't see the problem."

"The condescending pat on the cheek was offensive, not the cupcake part," Jason clarifies. "But the fact that he _keeps_ calling me Cupcake --"

She kisses him to shut him up because, well, it's moments like these -- when Jason doesn't shut up, when he says things like 'I want to slam this guy's face into a desk', when he still has that awful goatee -- that she has to remember why she's _with_ this guy.

(The sex, obviously. It's amazing. It's -- it's beyond amazing. It's holding on for her fucking life, nerves she didn't know she had coming alive and screaming for mercy, and once his really hot roommate joined them and they were _really_ cool with it afterwards. Cool enough for a do-over the morning after, and she needs to get on making that happen again.)

"Come over tonight," Jason whispers against her mouth.

"Hey," Nyota whispers back. "Did I mention I talked to Gaila?"

Jason stops and pulls back a little to stare at her. "What? About --"

"You were sweet enough to share your roommate with me," Nyota says slowly, a little coyly. "Maybe we could get the whole gang together? You're always talking about getting to know each other's friends, and…"

"I'll talk to Rich," Jason says and kisses Nyota again, and grins against her mouth. "Wouldn't it be awesome if they totally hit it off? The four of us just --"

"I've gotta go, I have a meeting with the new ethics guy," she interrupts because while she's _hoping_ the next part of his sentence is something like "having foursomes forever", she knows Jason, and knows it's probably more like "hanging out on a porch together, playing cards when we're 80" and other stuff she's not thinking about because she's _nineteen_ and Jason is so not there 60 years from now.

She kisses him again (because it's not using him if she never verbally reciprocates this 'baby I love you' stuff -- her _lack_ of a response is a response in itself -- she's not clarifying all this with herself because she feels guilty -- ugh, what even, she needs a fucking coffee before dealing with all this) and runs off towards the building where Commander Spock is holding his office hours.

*

She knocks at Commander Spock's door and peeks inside. "Hi there," she says. "I'm Cadet Nyota Uhura -- I'm in your Interspecies Ethics class this semester. I wrote --"

"Yes, sit down," he says. "What did you wish to discuss?"

Well, he's direct. She tries to look around his surprisingly big office (for a first-year instructor) and finally does sit down at one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"It looks very settled in already, very cozy," she says casually.

"Ah," Spock says. "So students here will also engage in 'small talk'? I had thought it would be eradicated in a purpose-driven environment such as this."

"With all due respect, Commander, small talk has its purposes," she replies. "It paves the road for more significant connections, and is a basic social skill applicable to nearly every sphere of civilization."

He tilts his head just slightly, ever so slightly, blink-and-you-miss-it slightly, but this is her thing -- this is why she's brilliant at what she does.

"In this case," she continues, "I noted my observation to begin the establishment of a rapport that may eventually develop into an advisor-mentor relationship, as your Starfleet career is one I would very much like to emulate, and befriending someone who has done what I would like to do -- it wouldn't hurt, would it? I would appreciate the guidance you have to offer."

Spock nods, sets the PADD that he probably intended to surreptitiously check during their meeting aside and out of his line of vision, and folds his hands on the desk. "You may switch out of the subjunctive, Cadet Uhura. What may I help you with?"

"Seriously?" she asks. "That worked?"

"For being one of the most prestigious centers of education and research in the galaxy," Spock replies, "I have noted that Starfleet cadets still fall victim to toadying, and you seem to understand that I am a Vulcan, and would not be insulted by your frankness."

"That you don't want to be humanized," she says. "Homogenized, assimilated."

"There comes a time when the need to, colloquially speaking, 'fit in' ceases to be a priority," Spock says. "My mother is Terran, and assures me that is a marker of adulthood for Terrans as well."

"It is," she agrees. "So can I ask about the assignment for Thursday?"

"Here it is, Monday, and you are the first to ask," Spock says and she might even go so far as to interpret that little breath as a sigh. "Teaching will be difficult."

"You were Captain Pike's second officer, weren't you?" Nyota asks. "He teaches, too, when he's not out in space -- didn't he warn you?"

"His exact words were, 'It's balls, Spock.'" She snorts inappropriately and looks off at a corner of the room before meeting Spock's gaze again. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, fine, just. You were saying?"

"I was not," Spock says. "That was all he said, and he would not elaborate, but I am beginning to understand the colloquialism."

"It's a good one," she says, and allows herself to grin at him before looking at her PADD to pull up the assignment file.

*

Once students are settled into their tracks, the huge world of Starfleet Academy shrinks to those immediately relevant areas of study -- Jason's course load is completely focused on tactics and security, and their one class together isn't enough to keep even a modicum of Nyota's interest.

So there are a few more evenings with Nyota, Jason, Gaila, and Rich, and then she ends it after winter exams.

"Exams are over, Nyota," Gaila sighs as Nyota packs for winter break. "And you can pack tomorrow before your shuttle -- let's go to Gaila. It'll get your mind off Cupcake."

"_Jason_," Nyota corrects. "And no, that's okay because, speaking of Cupcake, maybe you shouldn't go either -- I heard Kirk and his sleazy friends, Gary and the hick, talking about being there tonight."

"The hick?" Gaila asks as she examines her silver-painted nails. "I don't know that word."

"You know, the bitchy one from the middle of nowhere in the country."

"They're all bitchy -- oh, Leonard! Oh, Nyota," Gaila looks at Nyota earnestly and says, "You would _love_ him. He is just the sweetest thing!"

"I have never, _ever_ heard anything even remotely positive come out of that man's mouth -- and he's a _doctor_?"

"Well, to be fair," Gaila begins, "You do see him when he's with Jim, and that's mostly a show. He loves Jim a lot. And Leonard is from a big city! And he's _wonderful_ with his tongue."

"Have you really slept with all of them?" Nyota asks. "How do you stand them? They're just so -- _obnoxious_."

"That's their charm!" Gaila says. "Like you and your self-righteousness and elitism."

Nyota considers it for a moment and nods, because -- yeah.

"All right," Nyota sighs. "Let's meet this _Leonard_ person."

"He's a doctor and everything," Gaila says. "And Jim will grow on you, I promise."

"Along with everything else that's ever touched his genitals."

"_Nyota_."

"Fine, fine, I'll even put on a nice bra and everything."

*

Sure enough, McCoy is the first of the triumvirate to win her over. Nyota blames the lack of Kirk's shrill voice (because when she had arrived, he was already practically impregnating a girl near the back of the bar) and their reasonable conversation became boring enough for Gary to cruise the room with Gaila seeking an adventurous soul (or souls) to join their party.

"Cute kid," Nyota yells over the din in the bar when McCoy shows her a picture of his daughter who, yes, is genuinely adorable.

"Yeah, Joey's my life," McCoy replies as he slips his wallet back into his pocket. "Thanks for not reaching through the dimensions to steal my little girl's soul."

"You've read Pastle's _Demon Hunter_ series?" she asks.

"What do you think we do all day, Uhura?" McCoy asks. "Feed Jim's ego and…"

"Feed Jim's ego," Nyota finishes with a laugh.

"We study, read, watch holos, go out -- the whole well-rounded human experience," he replies. "_And_ I get to pretend I'm in my mid-twenties again and do another round of rotations in all these space medicine specialties I'll need if I'm going to hurl myself into the teeming clusterfuck of galactic exploration with Jim -- who is _really_ about to have sex with that girl against that wall, goddammit."

"That's a problem for you?" Nyota asks as she watches Kirk but addresses McCoy.

"It'd be narrow minded and old-fashioned of me to be jealous, huh?" McCoy asks. "I'm not, but this is what bathrooms are for."

Nyota laughs and says, "Oh, he _knows_. I cite the shuttle trip that introduced us all to each other --" She laughs again because McCoy looks so exasperated and runs a hand through his hair, and she thinks he's taking this too hard except he flashes the shortest grin as he looks down, and the whole thing -- his sloppily finger-combed hair, the five o'clock shadow, the eyebrows of death, and that tiny smile that snuck across his mouth and lit up his face really handsomely --

"It's really loud here," Nyota says. "Do you want to join me in the bathroom?"

"Well, now," he begins, but Nyota only has to tug on his sleeve and slide off the bar stool before he's following her down a narrow corridor to the obligatory dingy bar bathrooms.

"You won't think I'm a bad doctor if I actually fuck you in this disease-ridden cesspool, right?" McCoy asks as he locks the stall door behind them.

"Are _you_ a disease-ridden cesspool?" she asks as she steps out of her panties and tucks them into one of McCoy's back pockets. "I'm not, for the record."

"I'd see you more often around the med campus if you were," McCoy replies.

"You make any jokes about how this counts as my yearly physical," she warns, "And I'm out of here. I don't tolerate cheap jokes."

"Hold on," he says a little quieter, "All this build up about what this is or isn't, but I haven't even kissed you yet. Can I fix that? Would you mind?"

She laughs and meets his mouth, and she laughs again because _holy shit_ Gaila was right and his mouth is some kind of fucking _magic_ \-- it's not even his mouth, really, but it's all of him, the way he seems to mold her against him and sweep all of her up. His hands are huge and she can feel one on the small of her back, the other on the back of her neck, his fingertips pressing slightly at the back of her head -- she feels swept away as she wraps her arms around him, nails digging into his back a little, and she can't think of a funnier place for it than here in this shitty bathroom stall.

"Sit," he breathes against her mouth. "I'd like to eat you out."

She laughs and grasps his hair with both hands. "_Really_?"

"That so funny?" McCoy asks, still amused, his eyes moving from her eyes to her mouth and back to her eyes.

"You used the subjunctive -- _ma'am, would you mind terribly if I offered my services in cunnilingus_? Is that a Southern thing?"

He laughs a real, loud, deep laugh that she feels against her chest and has her wrapping her arms around him even tighter. His mouth drags across her jaw to her ear, where he whispers, "Tell me what to say, then."

"You're not leaving here until you make me come," she whispers back. "This is _going_ to happen. It's not _would I mind_ or _would I like_, it's you _want_ to lick me --"

He hums like he's considering it and she laughs, adding, "You _want_ to tongue-fuck me until the whole bar knows how good you are at this, until --"

"I _want_," he interrupts, "You to sit down on that lid before I die of old age, if it's not too much to ask."

"Still with the subjunctive," she sighs as she sits down and opens her legs for him.

It's McCoy who makes Nyota understand why the bar is called Gaila because about forty seconds of his tongue against her cunt, she's leaning back with her shoulders against the wall, eyes closed and fuck, she has to stop herself from saying what she wants to say, what she needs --

"Fucking _Gaila_," she gasps, and shrieks when McCoy rubs her clit head on and then stops suddenly. "What?"

"_Gaila_?" he asks.

"She -- she said you had a talented tongue --"

"Oh. Well. That's okay."

"_That's okay_?" she asks.

"She's a pal," he replies and Nyota can't toss a reply back quick enough before McCoy's tongue is in her again, and she comes quicker than she would admit to anyone later between his smooth, thick fingers in her and his tongue moving fast and hard enough to dislocate a less talented person's jaw.

"_Whatwasthat_," she gasps. Nyota sits up a little and watches him, still kneeling, as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and nonchalantly licks his hand clean, which -- oh, his _mouth_, she may have found spirituality and magic and other non-scientific things in Leonard McCoy's mouth.

After a moment or two of awkward motioning and non-verbal communication, McCoy is sitting on the lid of the toilet again and Nyota straddles his lap, contentedly playing with his hair and smiling down at him.

"I'd like to return the favor -- what do you want?" she asks.

"That's… unorthodox," McCoy says as he leans up to graze the side of her throat with his teeth. "I didn't know cadets did à la carte."

"This is a limited time offer," she laughs.

"Then my answer is -- whatever you feel like giving."

She freezes up and stares at him because -- what?

"Not to give a negative impression of the men I've been with before you," she begins, "But you are being too sweet for a bar bathroom quickie."

"Would you believe it's my first?"

"It is not," she gasps.

"It is! Probably wouldn't even be here if you weren't so damn gorgeous and intelligent, and if I didn't know the owner well enough to know this hepatitis chic decorating scheme is just a scheme. Yeah, sorry, it’s not _actually_ a disease-ridden cesspool, but --"

"Wait, does that mean you know why it's called Gaila?" she asks eagerly.

"Not… quite?" Nyota thinks she'll faint from his confused face, which he shakes off instantly. "It's a gay bar," McCoy adds. "Shortened form of gay… la la la?"

"That's just ridiculous," she laughs as she decides how she wants to fuck McCoy. She unbuckles his belt and after some squirming and lifting, she's freed his cock and sinks down onto him, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths to settle onto him --

"I'm guessing, then, that you've got back up birth control," McCoy mutters against her collarbone. "_I've_ gotten my shots --"

"Oh, don't _remind_ me," Nyota replies. "Not -- okay, you're thicker than my last boyfriend and this is taking a minute to adjust -- but that's the last time I saw you -- went to the clinic for my biannual hypo and _Jim_ offered to test its effectiveness."

"He's a sweet kid under -- oh, who am I kidding, he thinks you're beautiful and you drive him to say the _stupidest_ things --"

She kisses him so they stop talking about Jim Kirk, and she decides she loves, _loves_ riding McCoy like this, doesn't care if it's a first time, it's a _great_ first time -- there's something about him that she needs to wrap her arms around him, and she grins against his mouth when one of his hands reaches under her skirt where his thumb can rub her clit again as she lifts and sinks onto him, slower this time because she wants to enjoy this.

She wants to enjoy fucking this acquaintance in a bar bathroom and she can't quite get over that hurdle, for some reason -- the part where this guy is fun and she doesn't have to compromise an amazing fuck for a lack of personality, or chauvinism, or --

"No, but what's wrong with you?" she asks, still moving against him. "Because --"

"Hung up on my ex," he replies easily. "Getting over it, but still -- really hung up on her." He groans and leans his forehead against her collarbone, and says, "I'm real close, that's not for her."

"Good to know," she laughs, and his finger moves harder, more deliberately against her clit as she tries to maintain her balance -- everything gets sloppier as she feels how wet she is around him and their thrusts are easier but still fucking _intense_ \-- she comes with one short, sharp cry that she buries against his jaw, and Nyota has to shut her eyes as he fucks up into her because she can feel so acutely his every move in her, and tries desperately to remember that.

When he comes inside of her, it's one more sensation she's not sure she can register anymore, and they hold each other for a few long moments afterwards before she has slide off him and asks him to give her a minute so she can clean herself up.

"I might want to consider the same," he muses as he looks at his slightly stained jeans. "Definitely time for laundry now."

She hears the water run in the sink as she gets herself together, and finds she's pleasantly surprised when she leaves the stall and sees he's waiting for her.

"Up for another drink?" he asks while she uses the sink and checks herself in the mirror.

"That sounds good," she replies. "It's still early -- we still might be able to get a special."

"I think I'll switch to whiskey -- the good kind," he assures her. "Already bought Terran winter solstice holiday gifts for everyone, _and_ I don't have a vendetta against my stomach lining."

"Valid points," she agrees. "I'm still getting the special."

He holds the door open for her and fuck, why is Gaila always right?

*

The spring semester of Interspecies Protocol starts with Jim Kirk running up the stairs, making a beeline for the empty seat next to Nyota (surprise, Jason dropped the class, whatever) and beaming at her.

"How was your break?" he asks in a sing-song voice.

"Hi, Kirk. It went well -- how was yours?"

"Oh, _fine_," he says and leans on his hand, making his shit-eating smirk even _more_ grossly smug than it was before. "I spent it in Georgia with Bones and his kid. You saw pictures of her, right? Lil' Joey? Joanna? Smartest kid."

"I did; I'm glad you had fun," she says coolly.

Their instructor enters and Kirk sits up straight. "We'll talk more later, about how you boned Bones, 'kay?"

"That's sad," she comments as she pulls up her new note file for the class. "I didn't think him the type to kiss and tell."

"So you didn't tell Gaila, is what that means," he mutters under his breath as the lecture begins.

"Touché," she replies.

"Anyway, you should come by and ask him out, see him again, drag him out of our room once in a while," Kirk says.

"I'm a little suspicious of your motives," she says as a diagram appears on her PADD. "Just because it's you."

He shushes her and points to their instructor, and for not the first time, she wants to hit him.

*

_Had Kirk in my class this morning; mentioned you were back. Do you want to grab a drink?_

He answers about an hour later with a buzz at her dorm room.

"Can't stay out long, since I've got an early shift tomorrow morning," he says. "When isn't it early -- I'm babbling. One drink at Ralph's?"

"Sure, come in -- I just need to put on real pants."

"No you don't," he laughs. "Boxer shorts are perfect January in San Francisco weather."

"Says you," she replies as she goes for her favorite jeans hanging off her door hook. As she pulls off her shorts, she watches him divert his eyes slightly and she sighs. "We've _had sex_, Leonard, you _know_ what I look like."

"Well, thanks for the permission," he says, a little earnestly she thinks -- yup, he's staring at her ass as she buttons her jeans, and she can't help laughing a little. She watches him as she slips on a raincoat and scarf because he's bundled up, too, a scarf sticking out like an ascot and an umbrella tapping near his foot impatiently. As they walk out onto the quad, she swipes at a lock of hair hanging in his eyes and walks quickly ahead to the campus pub.

"Hey," he calls out as he matches her pace. "Feel like I should warn you -- I'm not looking for -- I'm just not looking right now. For a thing."

"Wow, that's vague," she laughs. "Did Jim put you up to taking me out? Because he definitely muscled me into it this morning."

"That idiot," he sighs. "I'm --"

"Fuckbuddies?" she asks. "Which is, technically, _a thing_, but --"

"Not a thing I'm dumb enough to refuse -- hold on, I sound like a jerk -- I don't wanna _use_ \--"

"You'd be a bigger jerk to fuck me with only the facade of caring about me romantically, and that's not what this is." She glances up at him as they walk and then looks back to the path they're walking on. "Besides, I'm not really interested in a romantic partner right now. Frankly, I don't know if I ever have been, but that's not relevant right now."

"You went out with Cupcake, didn't you? Big hulking goatee from the bar fight?"

Nyota nods and shrugs, her hands digging into her pockets a little deeper. "Look, I didn't say I could explain it but -- you're fun and you fuck _amazingly_ under pressure, so if that's something you'd like to do --"

He puts an arm around her shoulders and starts telling her about winter break with his daughter. When they get to the pub, they sync calendars and make a date for Thursday, thus pronouncing them buddies who fuck.

*

Commander Spock, having survived his first semester at Starfleet Academy, feels a little more at ease in the spring with actually advising Nyota beyond class assignments and discussions, and she's genuinely surprised that her bullshit ploy from day one seemed to have come true. Self-fulfilling prophecy, it seems -- more likely, having set out an objective to their relationship, it was easy to work towards it, rather than questioning motives the whole way through.

She still finds him so, so attractive, but he's also -- he's so sharp and dry and _bitchy_. He invites her to faculty and elite student functions, which are exercises in drinking without spitting up all over admirals when Spock insults someone to their face and they can't _say anything_ because they have no idea how to read him.

Also, Vulcans are notorious pricks, but Spock must be their king.

"Why didn't you stay on Vulcan?" she asks at some art gallery bullshit thing after Spock has introduced her to everyone as his most gifted student (which she is). "You're obviously intelligent enough for the VSA."

"Homogeneity for the sake of progress is the Vulcan way," he comments as he stares at a painting. "And I would have been content with that, but Vulcan was not content with me." He clears his throat and asks, "How is Illyrian treating you?"

She smiles at the diversion and replies, "I think I've finally got the pronunciation of _squash_ down. I love the vocab of beginning languages."

"Let me hear it," he says, and then he tilts his head and says, "Too much of a sibilant, but I wonder whether that is something that can be corrected, considering Illyrian and Terran tongues have vastly different textures that affect these sounds."

"…that's an interesting take on 'you said it wrong', I'll grant you that," Nyota laughs.

"Excuse me, Nyota," Spock suddenly, and she takes that moment to step outside onto the balcony with the champagne she needs to chug just a little faster to calm her nerves.

Which works until Gary Mitchell pops out of the shadows and she spills some of her drink on her dress.

"Oh, come on!" she shrieks at him before looking down to the mess spreading on her.

"Pretend I said something obscene and easy," Gary replies as he walks over to her.

"What are you even _doing_ here?" she asks as she wonders how long it'll take standing out here with Gary to make the stain evaporate.

"Needed a break from the hobnobbing," Gary replies as he sits up on the wide ledge of the balcony. "The mood's in there so fucking _low_."

"It's a _party_, Mitchell, what are you talking about?" she asks.

"Seriously?" he asks. "You -- everyone in there is just there to rub shoulders with department heads, ambassadors and their kids, admirals, blah fucking blah."

"So why did you come?"

"My paper on a new approach to astrotheory is being considered for some grant or whatever."

She stops fanning at her dress and looks at him. "Excuse me?"

He glances over and shrugs. "Jim and I were bored and didn't want to write our papers for our theories on command class, so we dared each other to meta the whole thing and… hey, look, people read our papers, who would have thought? Except I still have to write on the significance of a command track at Starfleet and _why do I want to be on the command track_."

"Sorry to ruin the self-pity party, Gary, but we all have to write them," she replies.

"What'd you write yours on?" he asks.

"The usual," she replies. "Altruism, first contact without imperialism, gifted at languages, wanting to work as part of a team."

"Wish I could do that," he replies. "I can't -- I know it's not _lying_, but I can't -- no, fuck it, I'm not writing that," he decides. "I'll astrotheory their assfaces. What's it matter _why_ I want to be on the command track? It's way more important that I'm _awesome_ at it, and not a crazed murderer or secret eugenicist, so give me a ship and let's go boldly, you know?"

"Barely," she says, but she thinks she knows what he means.

He nods to himself and then looks to Nyota. "Thanks for the pep talk. I'm getting the fuck out of here so I can write that paper."

Gary hops off the ledge and walks through the glass doors, and a half-dozen people attempt to touch him on the shoulder or elbow as he plows through the crowd and exits out the opposite door. A few minutes later, Nyota watches him exit the building below her and run across the grassy quad towards one of the dorms.

He stops about a hundred feet away, turns around and cups his hands around his mouth to yell, "Thanks, Uhura! Your brain is totally as firm as your ass!"

She offers him an obscene hand gesture, which makes him laugh and yell again, "Come on, I put your intellect and your hot ass on the same level! _All_ your parts are fucking _hot_!"

Nyota rolls her eyes and heads back inside, playing the stain on her dress as a new, improvised dress pattern, which won't matter once she grabs another glass of champagne.

Spock returns after a few minutes and asks, "Was that yelling outside for you?"

"One of my acquaintances thought he would let the entire Academy know that my mind and body are equally desirable," she replies, and adds with emphasis, "The _entire_ Academy."

Just then, in that split second when Spock looks her up and down from the corner of his eye as he focuses on a piece of art on the wall, she remembers that he's only twenty-five to her twenty, that he may be a prodigy/genius but he's not _dead_, and that if she takes this a step further tonight, they might end up as a hypothetical in his ethics seminar next fall.

She has another glass of champagne and then calls it a night.

*

Spock holds office hours every Wednesday and Thursday from 1-3 PM -- the precise hours when Nyota, Gaila, Gary, McCoy, and Jim have their lunch breaks and usually hang out outside the dining hall when it’s warm or in someone’s dorm room when it’s cold (usually Gaila and Nyota’s because it’s the neatest.)

When she’s about to tear off Kirk’s nose because he keeps trying to excuse himself to their bathroom and begin the search for one of her vibrators which he would then tamper with like a bastard, she gets up and stomps off to Spock’s office, because he has office hours and her Beginning Phonology paper needs some work if it wants to impress, not just pass.

He looks up when she knocks, a little shocked, and sets his PADD aside.

“Sorry, were you expecting other students?” she asks.

“Captain Pike assured me that the more office hours I provided, the less I would be harassed by my students,” he replies. “So far, he had been right.”

“Ha,” she laughs. “I know this isn’t for your class, but I feel like this paper isn’t _doing_ enough -- it only has to be five thousand words, but I’ve answered the assignment in about a third of that and I’m not sure where to go from here.”

The file is exchanged between them in a moment and she watches his eyes scan from side to side, his finger move down his PADD and, suddenly, he’s done.

“I take it the italicized portion at the top is the original question?” She nods and he flicks the screen lightly, going to the top of the page again. “Yes, in a basic class for a simple professor, you adequately answered the question in a straightforward, direct manner. My recommendation is to think about it for roughly five more seconds and realize the manifold other angles you can take on this topic in the space provided.”

“Really? On the use of the word ‘alien’ in basic Federation documents?”

“I am fairly certain my advice may be applied to every professional work you will ever write,” he replies and, fuck, for a Vulcan, he looks really smug about it. “Now, may I --”

“No, Commander,” she interupts, “Because I have some _really_ irritating people in my dorm’s work space and since you seem so confident about this --”

“If it is any consolation, I believe any mentally competent individual could undertake what I just stated,” Spock replies.

“Wow, thanks.”

“However,” and he almost looks pained to make such a concession, “You may do above average work on it, and so you should allow me to correct the rest of your paper for maximum verbal efficiency.”

“...Yeah, okay,” she says, and she begins pulling up the Academy’s search engines while he types way, way too many comments into the margins of her really short paper.

An afternoon passes, pleasantly, even if her ego takes a bigger beating than it’s used to taking, so after her 3 PM class, she really deserves the beer that Jim Kirk buys her because he _didn’t_ find her vibrator, but he and Gary and Gaila may have done an experiment on her sheets vs. Gaila’s sheets re: the myth of the thread count. (McCoy took notes. What.)

*

Near the end of the school year, Gaila and Nyota are having dinner at one of their usual places when the triumvirate arrives and swarms their table. Kirk and Gary sit across from Gaila and Nyota, while Leonard takes the head of the table between Nyota and Gary. He nudges her ankle under the table and shoves a few fries into his mouth to cover up his smirk.

“So,” Gary announces. “I’m going to take the Kobayashi Maru in a few weeks, I think.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kirk asks. “Sign me up. Dibs on your tactics officer.”

“Thanks, bestie,” Gary says as he puts an arm around Kirk’s shoulders and makes a scene of burying his face in Kirk’s hair while Kirk looks very nonchalant about the whole thing. “Now that just leaves a few more spots to fill, I think.”

“Ooh, could I be your chief of operations?” Gaila asks excitedly.

“Who else would I ask? Seriously!”

Nyota glances at McCoy, who sighs deeply and says, “I guess I’ll be your -- whatever, just put me down for whatever. Doesn’t affect me much, except you’ll probably get some awful time slot on a _Saturday_.”

“Med students don’t have to take the Kobayashi Maru?” Nyota asks.

“Our hierarchy and training’s different,” McCoy shrugs. “Those idiots really think a CMO will _never_ take control of a ship in a disaster, or should be too busy treating personnel or evacuating --”

“We take care of the ship, he takes care of the crew,” Gary grins as he pries himself off Kirk and raises his eyebrow suggestively at Nyota. “I still need a communications officer.”

“That’s a no, Mitchell,” she replies.

“Come on!”

“I’ve already taken it.”

“As a communications officer?”

“Guess what -- you’re not the first to have looked at the ranks by grade and noticed I’m not an airhead.”

Kirk huffs some dissent and says, “Please, I knew that from the moment I drunkenly laid a sideways glance on you.”

“My life was never the same,” she sighs.

“You should come because it’ll be Jim’s first time taking the test and he’s going to fail like no one has ever failed anything before,” Gary laughs.

“You’re going to deliberately fail? What am I talking about,” Nyota sighs again, “I say that like anyone ever passes.”

“Okay, I thought that was just an urban legend everyone perpetuated,” Kirk says. “Seriously -- _no one_ has passed?”

“It’s a test of character -- the grade doesn’t count towards anything,” Gaila explains.

“So I’m supposed to walk out of the room, proud I died a hero in a simulation?” Gary asks. “That’s fucking rich. Also, not going to happen.”

“Nyota’s advisor programs the test,” Gaila adds. “Maybe you should ask him -- I’ve never taken it as a captain, just as the bridge crew, and as far as I know, I’ve done all right.”

“Who’s your advisor?” Gary asks. “Simpkins? No, who’s that other --”

“Spock, the new ethics instructor,” Nyota replies.

“Huh. Never heard of him,” Gary says. “I’ll research him.”

“Or you could _talk_ to him,” she says.

“Wait -- is Spock a common name? In Vulcan? At Starfleet? In -- fuck, never mind, I know him,” Gary realizes.

“But why now?” Nyota asks. “I mean, why are you taking the test now? Usually people wait until their --”

“You didn’t wait,” Gary replies.

“A friend was taking it,” she shrugs. “I might take it as a captain next year, but like Gaila said -- it doesn’t count towards anything, so I probably won’t.”

“Hmm,” Gary says. “Well, I don’t know. I heard about this unbeatable test at lunch the other day and thought -- why not? Might look good on my record that I took it so early and gave the performance of a lifetime because -- by the way -- I am going to pass that test.”

“Do you _know_ the scenario?” Nyota asks. “Your ship _will_ be destroyed, it’s just a matter of how badly and how many people you evacuate from both ships.”

“Can you even rescue anyone from the Maru?” Gaila asks her. “I haven’t heard of anyone trying that -- once the Klingons start firing, they begin to evacuate their crew and try _not_ to destroy the Maru in their defensive.”

“You said it’s a test of character,” Gary interrupts. “So I’ll give them more character than they can swallow.”

“Ew,” Kirk says mid-milkshake.

“You love it,” Gary says. “I’m taking it because it’s a _game_ and I’m going to fucking _win it_.”

“And I,” Kirk says, “Am taking it because I’m going to bring this test down from the inside out.”

“Isn’t he cute,” Gary sighs as he leans on his hand and looks at Nyota. “It’s why we’re going to be such fucking awesome captains -- I win the game by established rules, and then Jim... what does Jim do, Jim?”

Kirk shrugs and they all watch Gary watch Kirk until Gary snaps his fingers.

“Jim’ll try to win by changing the world so that the game doesn’t have to exist anymore.”

“Sounds like you,” McCoy say to Kirk.

“I think it’s a fucking bullshit test and a colossal waste of time, so I’ll show that in my performance,” Kirk assures the table.

“I’ll give you credit, boys,” Nyota says. “At least your test will be the most interesting one I’ll see this year.”

“What won last year?” McCoy asks.

“Well, it was a friend of a friend’s test,” she laughs, “And the science officer decided to hyperventilate, and the jackass captain actually tried to stop the simulation to get him help.”

No one finds it as amusing as she does. Their loss.

*

Spock will later inform her that it’s the only time a brawl breaks out during the Kobayashi Maru simulation, which might be something to be proud of.

“With all due respect, _Captain_,” Kirk snaps.

“I said evacuate, Mr. Kirk!” Gary yells back. “Don’t make me throw you out of here my goddamn self, Jim!”

“I’m telling you as your tactics officer, there’s still a chance --”

“A chance, but no time!” Gary yells. “You’re first officer of this ship, Jim, and this is what you signed up for --”

“You don’t need --”

“It’s not your call! Every second you’re here --”

“I’m invoking 619!” Kirk yells up at the glass shielding them from the instructors. “This man --”

“Who are you talking to, Jim?” Gary asks softly.

“Okay,” Kirk laughs dryly, “You’re going a little too far --”

“Lieutenant Gaila,” Gary says, “Please escort Mr. Kirk out of here. Lieutenant Uhura, I’m promoting you to First Officer -- your order is to evacuate this ship.”

“Gary, you’re fucking this up -- Gary! The fuck --”

Gaila drags Kirk out of the simulation, Nyota, McCoy, and the rest of the bridge crew following.

Once cadets exit the ‘bridge’, they take a right and can watch the simulation from behind another booth. Kirk rips his arms out of Gaila’s grasp and watches Gary with his nose practically pressed up against the glass. Nyota rolls her eyes at the melodrama that’s erupted during this simulation. She was right, though -- it’s entertaining as hell.

Nyota then focuses on Gary, who sits calmly in the captain’s chair, head slightly bowed for a moment, before he looks up at the main bridge monitor again and begins firing at the Klingon warbirds that outnumber his ship. He fights them off until flames erupt on the monitor and the lights in the simulation room go off, signaling the end of the simulation and the destruction of his ship.

When the lights come back on, Gary’s still in the chair, clutching the armrests. Nyota watches as he slowly stands up, looks wearily at the glass hiding his crew, and then up at the glass hiding the instructors. He holds a glance up there longer, and then walks slowly out of the simulation room.

“Let’s go out the back,” Kirk informs them. “I can’t even look at his fucking face right now, I’m so pissed.”

Gaila touches Nyota’s arm, signaling they should follow, but Nyota waves her off and escapes the simulation room to find Gary outside.

He’s already outside the building, sitting doubled over on a bench, his arms resting on his thighs and his fingers in his hair. He glances up at her and smiles a little, then sits up straight when she sits next to him.

“So _what_ was _that_?” Nyota asks.

“Which part?” he asks, and she watches his face carefully because there’s so much -- _relief_ in his expression that she has to wonder at it.

“Uh, _all of it_?”

“I won,” Gary replies, the relief giving way to a huge grin that overtakes his face. “Won won won and by the way: I won.”

“There’s nothing to win, Gary,” she replies.

“Did you know,” Gary begins, “That Spock who programs the test was on a mission with Pike before the Academy snatched him up?”

“Of course --”

“And that he actually devised the Kobayashi Maru scenario about two years ago, while he was still on his tour with Pike?”

“What’s the point, Gary?”

“I’m getting to it!” Gary laughs as he brushes the hair out of his face. “_And_ did you know that Captain Pike is _the_ authority on the Kelvin disaster?”

Nyota tilts her head and asks, “You think it was modeled on the Kelvin disaster?”

“I’m saying the point of the exam is to become George Kirk,” Gary says. “And that’s why I win. In the range of automatic failures, I get a D+ because I called up my wife and our newborn son --”

“Shut up,” Nyota says. “That’s -- how could you enjoy this?”

“I’m not enjoying Jim’s dad dying, I’m -- it’s a puzzle, Uhura, and I fucking _cracked it_. Everyone else here has been too busy trying to kill all the Klingons or save their crew, so they didn’t realize all they had to do was be a martyr and look real sad about it.”

Nyota takes a deep breath because she feels so -- she thinks Gary is so despicable, but can’t explain _why_. Using a tragedy for his personal gain? Exploiting how the institution they were trusting their futures in wanted to make martyrs of all of them? Why does this make her feel so terrible?

“I just can’t look at you right now,” she replies, and she stands up and begins to walk away, but of course, Gary follows.

“Don’t you even think of judging me, Uhura!” Gary hisses at her as they walk on the same path, people moving quickly to get out of their way. “Think it’s selfish of me to give them the sobfest they want just so I can get a little note on my record that says ‘exemplary sympathy and emotional control’?”

“Is that what they write?” she asks, and fuck, she really is about to cry a little.

“Fuck yeah that’s what they write, and what do you think Jim’ll get on his record? ‘Batshit insane, easily emotionally compromised, could not handle a situation of extreme stress’ -- being George Kirk’s son isn’t going to get him a fucking ship, and neither is Pike’s hardon for both of them.”

“Just shut up, Gary,” she says.

“And do you know what? Just think about it for a minute -- do you think George Kirk gave a _fuck_ about the 800-something people he saved? The fuck he did! You listen to the recordings off shuttle 37, the Kelvin’s last ten minutes, and you’ll know exactly what he was thinking -- _Fuck this ship. Fuck Starfleet. Fuck every fucking person and every fucking thing that is going to come between me and my family, because I’m going to die here in a fucking wreck and I don’t want to._”

“So what,” Nyota snaps, stopping in her tracks so suddenly that Gary needs to backtrack in order to look her in the eyes. “Do you want a medal for Starfleet trying to learn from its mistakes? They weren’t even _mistakes_, they were just -- it happened, and I don’t know how you can think you’ll be a captain when you believe all these things -- that it’s just a game to win --”

“Shit, you don’t get it _at all_!” Gary yells. “I may have been sitting there thinking all this like a little shit, and George Kirk may have been cursing everything under the metaphorical sun that he had to die like a fucking _dog_ smashing headfirst into a ship he had no chance of outgunning, but the point is we _stayed there_.”

“But you don’t _mean it_!” Nyota yells back. “Say your ship _is_ under attack -- what’s going to stop you from declaring the situation total bullshit and just walking away, leaving Jim to deal with it?”

“Now that I can’t explain,” Gary admits. “But I just know I would. I know it the same way Jim knows he’s going to beat that test when no one else has, the same way we both -- I just know, okay?”

“I don’t believe you,” she says.

He looks into her face for a long moment, like he’s trying to figure her out or convince her, but Nyota doesn’t blink. He walks away, hands in his pockets, and she’s not sure she’s ever met someone who unsettles her quite like Gary.

(And, if nothing else, Gary’s ability to overturn her entire worldview once in a while -- Nyota finds she can’t quite let that go or avoid it as often as she would like. He pushes her in a world where people, especially men, are still a little afraid to push, and he takes her seriously. They argue without malice, think past their boundaries, and she needs that -- as a group, really, they all need it, and Gary and Nyota are the people to give it to them.)

*

“Tell me your what classes you wish to register for this fall,” Spock says when Nyota retreats to his office one day in the spring.

“Can I take Advanced Phonology yet?” she asks.

“You wish to test out of Intermediate Phonology?”

“Singer is covering material on his syllabus that I’ve already covered in most of my other papers, thanks to you. Remember?”

Spock has to think about it for a moment, and then remembers that, in fact, she has.

“I will meet with him and see what true essentials someone of your background would be missing by skipping his class for mine.”

“You know, that’s not how you go making friends and establishing yourself as a respected, learned professor around here,” she comments.

His look, his air, seems to scream _what the fuck do I care?_

“Enough,” he says, sitting up straight again and motioning to her PADD. “Show me your final project for Beginning Phonology.”

She sighs and sends him the file. “It’s a really, really rough draft --”

“Please do not be untruthful,” he says as his eyes scan the page. “You would not dare show me something that had not been intensively labored over, and I cannot understand why you -- why Terrans in general --” He puts his PADD down and says, “Modesty. Why? In nearly every case, the comments used to downplay one’s accomplishments are completely true. For example, this is not a rough draft, but it is not a _good_ draft. I estimate at least twelve more hours’ worth of writing to make bring this up to par.”

“And additional research?”

“No, the research is fine,” he says as he checks the works cited. “But this is clearly only preliminary work -- I would call this an outline, not a draft.”

“Oh good, we’ve established my paper’s taxonomy -- how about some constructive criticism on the content itself?” she asks because, know what? If he’s going to wrinkle his nose at reading an outline rather than a draft, he might as well go all the way and tell her how weak are the points she _has_ made.

“Why,” he asks after a short pause, “Are you writing about the importance of correct phonology in greeting words?”

“Because it’s important.”

“Thank you, Cadet Obvious, no one in all of Starfleet’s history -- in fact, in the history of the universe’s sentient species who have chosen to explore and interact with their interplanetary neighbors -- had ever thought of that before. I would push that further to include every creature who has ever stepped outside of their comfort zone to address another creature, but that would be unnecessary condescension, as you call it.”

She raises her eyebrows at him and valiantly keeps her face from blushing in embarrassment because, yeah, it was an easy topic and she fucking knew it, and why did she think he wouldn’t see that? Oh, right, because no one notices how basic these assignments are and she thought maybe this once, she could get away with doing a good job (versus an excellent job.)

In which case, she probably shouldn’t have come to Spock.

“What will be noticed,” he begins, “Is if you take this obvious problem and apply your knowledge and research to assisting Starfleet in remedying or avoiding it.”

“That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?” Nyota asks, because it sounds like the Jim Kirk and Gary Mitchell solution to every assignment they don’t like.

“And how are you not presumptuous?” he asks. “You have been presumption itself from the moment you stepped into my office.”

“So I should... hold on, I’m thinking, okay, because I’m actually just a second year and, believe it or not, not every instructor here encourages their students to challenge Starfleet protocol. Or any kind of protocol ever, really.”

“Ever?” Spock asks. “That is tragic. I will allow you time to think.”

“I don’t need _that_ much time,” she sighs. “Okay, so if I want to work on the importance of greeting words in general -- which, I have the research, I should do it -- I should tie it in to Starfleet policy, precedent, how exploration teams handle these questions, how they _should_ \--”

“Records of first contact are publicly available to all Federation citizens,” Spock replies. “Those are the watered down public relations reports you will encounter first. As a cadet, you have access to captains’ logs and all ships’ reports, except for the most confidential files, which to my knowledge would not impact this topic.”

“Since when does a Starfleet cadet get to dictate policy, by the way?” Nyota asks. “Because I know Professor Tylara will ask, and remind me that this is _just an assignment_ and working without a specific set of --”

“Since you were intelligent enough to do so,” he interrupts. “Now go demonstrate that that is the case. It is only presumptuous if you fail.”

“Good point,” she notes, and moves to get up, but Spock stops her.

“May I make one additional comment that is not strictly related to this work?” he asks.

“Of course.”

“You are an excellent student,” he begins.

“But?”

“But anyone can be an excellent student. The Academy is full of excellent students who will become comfortably ineffective diplomats, middle management, or leave Starfleet all together -- who cannot apply that excellence to something genuine. Keep that in mind. The best school in the Federation is still only a _school_, and will outlive its usefulness if you and others like you fail to push its boundaries.”

“That’s pretty obvious,” Nyota replies.

“Then why did you not do it sooner?” he asks. “Why did I have to point any of this out if you are, in fact, as gifted as you believe you are?”

...he has a point. She has work to do.

*

At the end of that year, around the middle of exam week, McCoy ends things.

She meets him outside her dorm on a bench around near the back garden and he’s just the best kind of cliche.

“The purely physical thing is too much of a demand on your time? Bullshit,” she says, but she’s smiling, amused, because he has an arm up on the back of the bench and is digging his fingers into his hair. He might even be blushing and there’s a curiosity that could make cats extinct with how badly it wants to escape her mouth.

“Uhura,” he drawls because, yeah, he knows her name is Nyota, but he never calls her that since Kirk is around them 75% of the time and, honestly? _Uhura_ sounds so much better in his mouth, all low U’s and rough R’s, giving it a texture that no one else can emulate when he’s growling it into her neck, against her breasts, or even just here and _now_.

“Don’t think I’m going to supply your excuse for you -- when have I ever made things easy for you?” she asks, nudging him in the shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s someone else,” he sighs. “And I figure. Well. It’s just. Think I’m too old fashioned for you -- for this -- for him, actually, but that’s neither here nor there -- I can’t --”

“Yeah, I got it,” she replies. “And that _is_ old fashioned, but cute, so you keep on with that, okay?”

“I’m off, then,” he says, and presses a kiss to her cheek quickly before leaving the bench in one smooth motion and disappearing around the corner of the dorm in seconds.

Something about being dumped, she reflects -- she loves being alone and independent and free, but something about this moment makes her aware of how alone she really is. It’s May and she feels chilly, suddenly, and thinks she’d like nothing more than a pre-cramming-session beer at the pub before holing up with her PADD for the rest of the night in the library.

Jim Kirk, surprisingly enough, is there minus his entourage or pack of objectified women. Just him and a beer at the bar, and an empty seat next to him.

“Anyone sitting here?” she asks.

“You are,” he says after his eyes have made their usual thorough trip up and down her body, “And if anyone says different, I will straight up murder them.”

“What a charmer,” she sighs. She orders her beer and it’s exactly what she had hoped for. “So your friend the doctor just ended our friends-with-benefits arrangement. Any idea what that’s about?”

“Hmm, nope,” Kirk replies.

“He says it was another --”

She stops suddenly, because Jim Kirk, who for all the shit she gives him on a regular basis is actually a good student and practically lives in the library when he’s not in the middle of a burger or _in_ someone else, is drinking his dinner the night before an exam she knows even Gary is studying for. (Which she wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t come by the dorm earlier, every inch a sad puppy, asking for Gaila’s help with some engineering thing he couldn’t figure out in time for the exam tomorrow.)

“Another what?” Kirk asks sharply. “Sorry, another whom? Who? One of those. What about Bones?”

“Nothing,” she says.

She drinks her beer a little quicker because something about Kirk when he’s like this, sullen and still, it’s like he’s gearing up for something, she can feel it. Feel it, please, she can see it in the way he’s harnessing every one of his actions -- the tight grip around his beer, the controlled swipes he takes at the condensation on the glass, the pretzels he grabs out of a bowl and crushes on a napkin but doesn’t eat. It’s fucking _fidgety_ and she doesn’t have the time or inclination to stick around for this to happen.

“I didn’t know you two were still fucking around,” he notes. “Or I. I don’t know, Gary and I thought he’d been really uptight lately, but maybe it was just us. Wonder who else he’s seeing, making him so edgy and shit.”

“You’ll help him through it, I’m sure,” she replies. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, later,” he says dryly, and she downs her beer and leaves.

Outside, she sends McCoy a short message: _Jim was looking for you at the bar. He doesn’t look well._

_’Doesn’t look well’? Thanks for the diagnosis, Florence Nightingale. I’ll go get him. Thanks._

She realizes when she steps back into her dorm that she messaged McCoy because he’s McCoy and Kirk needed help, not for any of his medical degrees or whatever. It’s an obvious fact, but one that she turns over in her head as she studies. She can’t help wondering about them and what she thinks is a whole glacier under the surface she only skirted around earlier.

*

Nyota’s third year rolls around. Most of the students in their year end up studying on other planets for both semesters, while Gaila and Nyota and the gruesome threesome that loves them stick around (maybe they’ll go away next year, she thinks, and wonders what _that_ would be like.)

It’s Spock’s second year as an instructor and maybe because they both entered (and re-entered) the Academy around at the same time, there’s a camaraderie there that she doesn’t have with her other instructors. That and he’s not an idiot, and he doesn’t challenge her with mind games like Gary, but with sheer force of intellect. It’s refreshing.

“Why,” she asks as she sits down across from him in his office one afternoon, “Are men such _pigs_?”

He tilts his head and she continues, “I mean sex-crazed -- no, actually, it’s _not_ sex-crazed, I _understand_ sex-crazed, frankly I’m a little sex-crazed myself -- maybe not crazed, but conscious and --”

“Is this is babbling?” he asks. “The nuances of that word have always confused me.”

“This _guy_,” Nyota sighs, “Who -- and this isn’t like, an Official Complaint to take to the Disciplinary Board or anything, because he’s harmless and a genius but not malicious in any way -- and every word out of his mouth is some come on to me, but he never actually comes on to me? It’s like -- how do I describe that? It’s a constant acknowledgement of my attractiveness, my sexual viability, but there’s no follow up -- all bark and no bite, but -- _posturing_, that’s the word I want. He’s performing the role of the sex-crazed maniac who wants me so furiously he can barely walk _but_ there’s no substance behind it.”

“And this upsets you?” Spock asks.

“Confuses me,” she says.

“Do you not also posture?” he asks. “What facade do you project throughout the day and struggle to uphold?”

“...None,” she says without much thought. “I’m -- I have very little to hide, and there aren’t any consequences for being myself. And _he_ is obnoxious enough that this jackass facade has to be the real one, because I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to project something less annoying if he wants to get to the places he wants to go.”

“Perhaps that is the only language both of you speak,” Spock suggests.

“Which is kind of demeaning, isn’t it? That I’m, apparently, a walking vagina and, when he remembers, a pair of tits. Circumstantially, we’re very close acquaintances. He knows my research interests, most of my history I’m sure, who I’ve slept with, my career aspirations...” She pauses and Spock raises his eyebrow.

“Is that all you are? Student number 186555 and a brief gossip sheet?”

“Don’t try and make me feel some kind of sympathy for him,” she laughs. “He’s a jerk. You’ll meet him one day and you’ll see -- actually, he’s taking the Kobayashi Maru again next month. As a captain this time -- oh! This is the cadet who threw a fit during Gary Mitchell’s exam.”

“Oh, him,” Spock says. “Yes, that should be interesting. Will you also participate in the simulation?”

She groans and nods. “No one can take this test without me, apparently. I swear, aren’t there other communications track cadets in this fucking place?”

“A curious use of an expletive,” Spock remarks, “As though you would like --”

“What, competition? Yeah, I would like someone to be challenge me -- someone _besides you_, Commander, much as I appreciate it.”

She looks down to her PADD and his highlighted comments on her latest academic effort for his class, and when she glances at Spock again, he’s turned slightly to look out his window, like he’s deep in thought. Nyota pulls up her notes and research and stays in his office, working on her project. Spock snaps out of it eventually, picks up his PADD to continue his own work, and they spend the rest of the time until their next engagements working in silence with only the occasional comment exchange.

It might be the most pleasant afternoon she’s ever spent in her life, moreso because it was genuinely productive in every sense of the word. It’s another one of those times (and she has collected hundreds in her memory, but this one glows the brightest) that she’s glad, so glad she’s at Starfleet where she can argue, construct and deconstruct, write on a thousand different worldviews in a year and know there are millions more yet to be discovered. She’s only twenty, and knows how lucky she is to have realized now, before it’s too late, how huge the universe is and how badly she needs to see more of it.

*

It’s a fucking perfect storm spring semester of Nyota’s third year when she, Gaila, Gary, and Kirk take Advanced Klingon with Representation Readings. If she wanted to flatter herself, she would think Gaila was sending Gary and Kirk their schedules every semester so they could test into some of their classes, or moaning her course selections in her sleep.

(McCoy is too smart to get involved in their bullshit and, anyway, doesn’t have time for it -- half his course load is “space medicine” and the other half is science track, which is like a planet unto itself, totally separate from command and operations.)

Anyway, with the four of them in the same class on the same touchy, always current and relevant hot topic, they tend to dominate the discussion. Sometimes in Klingon, because that’s how they roll. They switch back into English when the discussions get particularly heated, though.

“When you refuse to acknowledge that Klingon literature of the last century went through a decadent revival, one that was _definitely_ influenced by the disaster with the _Betaya_, in which --” Kirk explains.

“But that’s my point!” Nyota replies. “I agree with you that Klingon literature went through something we, as Terrans, would call a decadent period --”

“That’s all I wanted!” Kirk says.

“I’m not _finished_,” she snaps, “But I’m asking, can you even call it a decadent period when the concept was unheard of in Klingon culture before the literature discovered in the _Betaya_ incident influenced them? What would Klingons call it? We can see right here in this story a response to an outside influence and their acceptance and appropriation of something of ours into their culture --”

“Something completely foreign to their own,” Gary notes, “Something that went totally against the grain of their established culture -- that’s something we have to note.”

“But Jim is pointing out that the stories from weeks two and three could be interpreted as anticipating this work,” Gaila says, “That, had the _Betaya_ not disrupted their natural cultural progress, they would have come to a decadent movement on their own accord.”

“But it wouldn’t have been _decadent_,” Nyota replies. “Decadent is our word, our taxonomy forced on their culture, and would we call those early stories decadent had, say, O’Neill or Ellis been imported into their culture rather than --”

“I don’t see what your problem is,” Kirk interrupts, and he spreads himself out in his desk seat, arm over the back of the chair, like he’s got some trump card in his sleeve and he _so_ does not.

“My _problem_?” Nyota asks.

“Using our Federation -- I’d even say our exclusively Terran -- literary and cultural classifications in our Terran discussion in our Terran institute of learning for our Terran discussion and our Terran understanding of Klingon culture which, let’s face it: isn’t the endgame of this to amass the Klingon Empire into the Federation?”

“_What_?” Nyota and Gaila shriek, and even Gary lets out a dry little cough while keeping his objective facade on.

“Do you really think this war-without-a-war with the Klingons is going to go on forever?” Kirk asks.

“That isn’t what you said, Jim,” Gaila replies. “I don’t understand how you can _sit there_ and blatantly admit yourself to be an -- an _imperialist_ of the very worst kind!”

“Okay, I didn’t bring up the i-word,” Kirk sighs, the smugness gone, finally. “I mean --”

“Yes, what did you mean, Jim?” Gaila asks. “Because the atrocities --”

“He’s saying,” Gary interrupts, “Is that, ultimately, isn’t the point of Starfleet understanding and acceptance? Which is different from assimilation and -- you know -- what you said, Gaila.”

“You said _amass_, Kirk,” Nyota reminds them.

“Recruit, maybe,” Kirk muses. “Invite. _Not_ colonize, I mean, after all, we’re not _them_.”

“Jim!” Gaila says. “This othering language! You claim to want this idyllic future, a galactic civilization where everyone understands each other, but how is that going to happen when it’s still ‘us and them’, and ‘at least we’ll never be _them_’ --”

“Gaila, there’s no nice way of saying this,” Kirk begins, “But Klingon culture as it is right now? At this very moment? It’s rooted in hostility and stands against _everything_ the Federation stands for.” He looks out to the rest of the lecture hall that has been checking its messages, listening somewhat intently, glancing at the clocks, and sitting back and letting them do all the talking. “I know all of us came into this class not _just_ to round out the obligatory humanities credit -- there’s a reason there’s two huge sections of this class. Everyone wants to find some threads of commonality in Klingon culture, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.” He glances to Nyota and Gaila and adds, “Some of us more than others.”

“And what is that --” Nyota interrupts, but Gaila nudges her.

“_But_, we’re idiots to deny the real threat that we’ll be facing in our eventual Starfleet assignments. It shouldn’t be _wrong_ to acknowledge the fact that Klingon is a warrior culture that is antithetical to our relatively more humanitarian cause -- and I’m sorry to use the word _humanitarian_ but, somehow, it’s been two centuries since First Contact and we haven’t come up with a better one.

“I’m saying that we need to be able to stand apart from what we want the Klingons to one day be to us -- what they are to themselves on one level, which is a different and functional society that demands our respect as fellow sentient beings -- and what they actually are now and for the foreseeable future.”

“And what does that have to do with Klingon decadent literature?” Gary asks playfully, leaning his chin on his hand and grinning at Kirk who grins right back.

“The f -- I don’t know, what did I mean by that? I mean that --”

“No, I understand,” Nyota says. “You’re asking for a separation of the Klingons between the real tactical threat and our academic understanding of them in this particular context.”

“Yes, exactly!” Kirk sighs with relief.

“Fuck. That,” Gaila says quite clearly. “Academize yourself.”

“Seriously, Gaila?” Kirk asks. “You want to tell me that you sit through every lecture on the Orion slave trade objectively?”

Jaws drop around the room, but Gaila stares him down.

“One, that was petty,” she replies, “But a valid point. And secondly, I do. Personally, I contribute to your culture’s understanding of mine whenever possible, and I genuinely don’t understand how you think anyone can divorce themselves from the facts of a situation in order to _better_ their understanding. Why not just make up _anything_ you want about --”

“Okay, this whole discussion arose because of Terran terminology to understand Klingon concepts --”

“Which, if you’d paid attention in _any_ language class _ever_, you would know does the originating language a disservice and compromises meaning,” Nyota interrupts.

“What _meaning_?!” Kirk asks. “We have literally only a handful of texts from random parts of the Klingon Empire and -- I want you to acknowledge that what we know of the Klingons is incomplete _at best_, and that the intellectual work we do in this classroom is Terracentric, liable to a complete overhaul if we should ever become allied with the Empire.”

“I can agree to that,” Nyota says. Gary nods his acquiescence, and Gaila nods without breaking her impassivity.

“I’m sorry I doubted your intellectual capacity for objectivity, Gaila,” Kirk adds, loud enough for the class to hear.

“Don’t do it again,” she replies. “And you should gift me a beer as an apology.”

“And that’s time,” their harried instructor calls out as a tone rings throughout the room. “You four are not allowed to talk on Thursday.”

“I look forward to the enlightened discussion our peers will conduct then,” Gary announces as he stands up and gathers his things.

They try not to snort in derision amongst themselves but find they kind of can’t help it, and Nyota wonders when exactly all this happened. Like, seriously.

Kirk, though.

He wants to be a starship captain and who is going to stop him from sashaying down to a planet of warp-capable aliens and just forcing his value system on them?

Right, _they are_. She, Gaila, Gary, McCoy, and anyone who ends up on his ship -- but Spock also mentioned people who get through the Academy brilliantly and then end up --

She watches him put an arm around Gaila’s shoulders and listen to her talk as they walk to their next classes, Gary just a little behind them and piping in once in a while. It’s cute, and she loves Gaila, and Gary is a fascinating study in socially acceptable levels of total insanity and amorality, but Kirk.

She sighs to herself and walks off the path from the rest of them, maybe to grab some coffee, mostly to just be alone for a while.

*

_Nyota --_

I am offering you the position of my student aide for Advanced Phonology next term.

Requirements:  
\- Reading your peers’ papers and offering insight on why they are terrible;  
\- Attending each session in order to absorb the brilliance my dulcet tones have to offer;  
(Already established: a healthy sense of irony.)  
\- A presentation every four weeks on a topic I elide over in the syllabus;  
\- Extraordinary patience;  
\- Two hours of availability per week to consult with students so they continue not to bother me and I may continue my own research unhindered;  
\- A deep and genuine dedication to forming a class of less stupid Starfleet cadets.

Do you accept?

\--Spock.

*

It’s her final year at the Academy and she feels less like a student than ever.

Nyota has her language quarter (Advanced Illyrian, Klingon, and Tellarite, what fun!) and her quarter as an aide for Spock; another quarter as an intern for the Vulcan language press in San Francisco (hilarity, because they only “press” one real book per year and the rest are distributed electronically); and her final quarter is operational theory for officers, the senior capstone.

That’s Captain Pike’s course and she is so, so glad that it’s the last course she’ll ever take at Starfleet.

“Point of this class, more than anything, is to drill this into your head: _BE PREPARED_.”

Nyota already notices that he’s active -- he enjoys pacing back and forth, playing with anything on his desk or in his pockets, even just the hem of his uniform -- and that she is going to take everything he says far, far too seriously.

“First thing you need to know -- maybe something you already picked up on being all of twenty-two years old,” he laughs, “Is that the worst day of your life will, very likely, start out like every other day you ever have or ever will live. This is especially true on a starship, when every morning starts just like every other. The environmentals will start to come on in your quarters, and then your yeoman, your spouse, your friend, or whoever is in charge of micromanging your life will come to your door to scrape you together. You head off to breakfast together, talk about how you slept, what you dreamed of, what you want for breakfast, and you can’t even fathom the shitstorm brewing -- if you could, you wouldn’t have gone to sleep.”

No one takes notes. Nyota does consider it, though, but thinks it would say something like “DON’T GO TO SLEEP IF SHITSTORM IS BREWING” or “BREAKFAST THEN DOOM.” She’d have trouble deciphering that later, so it’s best to just remember what Pike says and move on.

“And now that I’ve got that out of the way,” Captain Pike announces, “And because it’s Thursday, I’ll tell you about one of those days.” He takes a breath and then interrupts himself to add, “By the way -- because I can’t do a start-to-finish linear lesson plan to save my life, you’re all going to have to take it upon yourselves to let me know when my digression has become rambling, okay? Remember that.

“So the day my crew and I arrived at Tarsus IV, my wife brought me a cup of tea in bed and threatened to pour it on my face if I didn’t get the hell up.”

The class laughs, a little bitterly, a little hesitantly.

“Actually,” Pike remembers, “She wasn’t my wife at the time, just my first officer -- me and my number one go way back, and that’s probably what I was thinking about at the time. Not, ‘Chris, get out of bed, there are four thousand people dead on the planet below you and another four thousand scared for their lives and starving to death, oh, and one genocidal maniac who should have never been put in charge of a colony in the first place’ -- it’s easy to think of that later. At the time, it was all, ‘where’s that goddamn tea you promised to pour into my face’ and ‘how can one person be so bitchy and attractive this early in the morning?’ You know, the usual.”

As Nyota listens, she really wonders what the point of the class is except... well, except _be prepared_ and _preparation is never enough_, so. Really, case studies, she supposes, examples to look into should she choose to do research at some later point, or -- she realizes her mind is wandering and Pike has asked a question.

“Okay, and who’s in the sciences?” A fair number of cadets raise their hands. “And who’s operations? Yes, both security and general ops.” Nyota raises her hand along with some other cadets and Pike nods. She must have missed the tally of command crew.

“It’s why I teach Tarsus the first day,” Pike sighs. “So even if you drop the class, drop everything, at least you have this. It -- there’s a dread you eventually come to know. Not sure when it happens, maybe it’s different for everyone, but there comes a point when beaming down to a planet isn’t something you’re giddy about.”

“Sorry, but,” a cadet asks with a raised hand. “But -- shouldn’t that be when you -- when exploration is taking its toll on an officer like that, isn’t it a sign of some kind of necessary leave due to exhaustion or need for reassignment?”

“It’s a _job_, Cadet, one you have to shut up and do, or excuse yourself out of.”

“But --”

“Fatigue will manifest in other ways, believe me,” Pike laughs. “Being locked in the same tin can for five years with the same 1300 people? Yeah. You’ll notice when a crew needs leave. When someone starts a brawl in the mess over a badly synthesized cupcake? You need to stop for leave. Dreading to beam down to a planet because things look suspicious and you might lose your life on this routine colony inspection? You _don’t_ need leave. Perfectly healthy paranoia.”

The cadet seems to accept the answer and Pike continues.

“Here’s the thing about beaming into a situation like Tarsus IV -- you don’t know what it is until you’re there, in the middle of it, and have to find your way out. Our information from Starfleet was this: _Report to Tarsus IV ahead of schedule; received brief reports of fungus decimating food supply. No additional information available._ That’s it. So we stock up on MREs and refugee supplies, in case it needs to be evacuated, and head over.”

Nyota raises her hand and asks, maybe stupidly but she’s curious, “Why did Starfleet specify they were ‘brief reports’? What did the originals say? Or is that not relevant?”

Pike smiles wryly and points at her. “Yeah. I could have used you on my team then, Cadet. We didn’t ask. We just didn’t ask what they meant by ‘brief’ -- you have to be a real Tarsus junkie to know this, but the original reports were typed out by a 13-year-old colonist and sent on the Starfleet distress channel his mother, a Starfleet officer, had given him the code for in case of an emergency.”

“And the colonist didn’t specify what was happening?” Nyota asks, her hand still raised.

“No, Cadet, the 13-year-old on the run for his life with eight other younger children in his charge, surviving in the wilderness of the colony while four thousand people were being murdered and four thousand others were starving to death, didn’t have time to send us a more detailed account of the colony’s grain output and Kodos’s eugenics theory.”

“Sorry,” Nyota says quietly.

“_And_,” Pike adds, “Forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but those nine escaped from the central colony compound itself, not from the outlying locations of the colony, if that wasn’t enough pressure put on a bunch of kids.”

Pike swallows thickly, almost audibly, and adds, “But to your satisfaction, Cadet, we did get one more message forwarded from Starfleet, from that colonist, on the day we actually entered Tarsus IV’s orbit. Again, very short, but to the point: _A lot of people have been killed. Please hurry. We won’t survive much longer. PADD running on minimal power for geolocation._”

He waves his hand and says, “So how do you handle that? All of that? We didn’t receive that message until about 0900 hours, about an hour before the time we had scheduled with Kodos to beam down. How the _fuck_ do we handle this? And that’s when the three branches come into action.”

“I was the head of the command team -- obviously. With Number One, also my tactical officer, we identified the two points where we would beam down. Two teams, one to greet Kodos and play the nice inspectors, one to rescue those kids and find out what was going on.

“While we planned the wheres and whens, our science team figured out the whys and whats and hows -- what were the chances those kids were still there? What was the likelihood Alpha Team would be shot on sight by Kodos’s team? What about the survivors themselves? What kind of trauma had they been through? Psychologists, biologists, doctors -- they all figured out plans of approach.

“And finally, operations. All of that planning would have been completely useless without operations to just _do it_. Our communications officers to geolocate the weakening PADD signal, break into the colony’s local info banks to find records of what was actually going on that those kids and Starfleet wouldn’t have had access to; our engineers figuring out how to safely and quickly gather whoever was left and evacuate them from the colony, possibly without drawing the suspicious of the local government, and whether our ship could handle it -- did we have enough supplies for all these people? Could we get additional ships here soon? How soon? What do we do until then? Can we get a shuttle to a starbase for additional supplies until a transport ship gets here?” Pike sighs and holds his hands up.

“Basically, I’m dancing around that old adage: the best laid schemes of mice and men blah blah blah. It’s up to operations to prevent that -- to sift through these elaborate plans drawn up by command and sciences and say _this is never going to work_ or _this is what we need to make it happen_ and, more than that? To actually _do it_. All this studying, lecturing, training, simulations -- they’re not worth a damn if they can’t be executed.”

Pike glances up to the opposite wall and raises his eyebrow. “Class is almost over, so let me wrap this up briefly: we don’t need to talk about what actually happened when we reached the surface. It’s common knowledge. That’s what we’re doing here: reviewing what you’ve already learned and how that came to happen. Starfleet’s role in these events, each branch’s role, and that’s how this class is broken down: every Thursday, you come here for a lecture. Every Tuesday, we head over to the simulation bridge/lecture hall, where fifteen of you will participate in a simulation while the rest of us watch. The simulations are sometimes closely, sometimes vaguely related to the lecture materials. Every group reacts differently, and there’s no right or wrong -- there’s better or worse, and it’s more you testing yourself and the skill sets you’ve developed here. Any questions?”

“How will we be graded on the simulations?” a cadet asks.

“A private letter grade from me, and simulation will be recorded in split screen for the class’s review: the simulation itself and the discussion happening during the simulation itself. You can expect to participate in a simulation at least three times this semester, four for operations officers since you’re kind of outnumbered here, champs.”

“Is a list of the simulations available somewhere?”

“For other instructors, but not for me,” Pike grins. “I suggest looking up the others, reading through them, and then keep in mind that I strive for realism in my simulations.”

The tone signals the end of class and Nyota spots Gaila a few rows behind her, late because of her date last night. She runs up the steps to her and raises her eyebrows.

“This is going to be terrifying,” she informs Gaila.

“I certainly think so!” Gaila replies happily.

*

“Have you ever taken one of Captain Pike’s simulations before?” Nyota asks Spock later that week as she grades papers for his class.

“Several times,” he replies. “I was killed during one of them, actually.”

“Really?” she asks, looking up from her PADD.

“The acting captain threw me out of an airlock because I would not support his plan of action,” Spock says casually. “Mr. Finnegan is now a moderately successful accountant on Mars, I believe.”

“That sounds exciting -- for you, I mean, dying in a simulation,” she laughs. “I can’t wait for mine. It sounds terrifying.”

“The key to surviving Captain Pike’s capstone is to think things through as an ethical, intelligent, and compassionate creature -- particularly when he decides to send more warbirds at your ship, or incorporeal aliens, or even a bout of time travel, all of which must be solved in a 52-minute session.” Spock puts his PADD down and looks at Nyota. “Suddenly, I would like to participate in another one of his simulations.”

“You served with him -- won’t he be using experiences you lived through with him?”

“Exactly -- I would like to see what lessons I am inadvertently teaching your year of cadets.”

Nyota works on her PADD for a few seconds, smiles, and glances up at Spock. “His simulation room is available right now.”

“I have a faculty code to access a simulation,” Spock says. “Do you have 52 minutes to spare?”

“Do you know how to disable the cameras in the hall?”

“We are okay to go,” he answers, and they leave his office for the hall.

*

The cameras are disabled and Spock copies the simulation to his faculty chip, allowing it to run from there so Pike wouldn’t see that his simulation was accessed or opened when he checked on them.

“This one is directed more to the science crew,” Spock says when he walks down to the bridge section of the hall where Nyota is sitting in the communications seat. “When it comes up, you will not have much to do, unless your classmates are particularly incompetent.”

“Okay, and how do we run this with just us two? It’s made for fifteen.”

“Check in here,” Spock says as he sits at the science station and presses a key. “The room will operate like a game, and fill in the rest of the crew. When necessary, you can have your station run automatically and check in on another station -- if you believe the captain is not behaving appropriately and such.”

“This is great,” Nyota says excitedly as she activates her station.

The simulation is, apparently, a common occurrence on a deep space mission: beings attempt to invade the starship and take it over. Nyota spots a vulnerability in one of the shuttle bays and activates the security officer’s station to cover the breach, but she miscalculates and the breach allows a being in.

“And what are you doing, science officer?” Nyota huffs, still working as the security officer and attempting to close off decks and trap the beings in one strategic place.

“Analysis, formation of a plan,” Spock replies. “Also, I checked in as the CMO and engaged in a fist fight with one of them, ending in a broken tibula.”

“Ooh, I want to do that,” Nyota says, and roundly gets her ass handed to her when she attempts to assist Spock’s CMO. “These are tough! Sciences, have you identified any of the intruders’ weaknesses?”

“None, and I cannot read a visual on them,” he almost sighs.

“You know you can cheat,” Nyota laughs. “Weren’t you on the ship with these guys?”

“This was not during my mission,” Spock muses. “And now I have been killed _again_ \-- they are shapeshifters.” He turns in his chair and glances at Nyota, an eyebrow raised slightly. “Of course, you should not know that until you send a security officer to discover my body, but --”

“Cheaters will prosper, I promise, Spock,” Nyota replies. “You will be avenged!”

“With ethical considerations and compassion,” he reminds her.

“That’s not a contradiction in terms -- no, dammit, I’ve just died, too! Okay, time to take over as the captain.”

“Is that wise?” he asks. “You --”

“It’ll be fun -- I want to see if she has any special privileges my stations don’t have.”

When the simulation reminds them of the 52-minute limit, they make the executive decision to ignore it and continue working against the beings that are slowly working their way towards the bridge.

“Okay, I’ve broken the language barrier and --”

“_We want you to die_,” the alien voice hisses throughout the bridge. “_We want nothing of you, only your death._”

“Spooky!” Nyota comments.

“I am impressed you were able to breach the language barrier, but I wonder whether we could not have devised their plan of action from how they were planting explosives along the corridors as they traveled towards the bridge,” Spock says as he approaches the captain’s chair where Nyota is working from and from where she can access the rest of the stations. He leans into her screen and points out the flashing red threats on the graphical representation of the ship.

“So we’re fucked, aren’t we?” Nyota asks.

“Euphemistically, yes, we are about to die,” Spock replies slowly, and he punches in a sequence on Nyota’s keypad that brings about the final minutes of the simulation -- an alien revealing itself on the main viewscreen, speaking about their destruction, revealing the explosions, how much time they have left, and the screen asks _Do you want to evacuate? Evacuation is possible from Decks 3 and 7, and will allow for the survival of 30% of your surviving crew._

However, something about the past few hours of this simulation with Spock, laughing (his smirking, though she would swear he laughed once when her navigator was vaporized when trying to protect a nurse), failing miserably, and now his leaning in so close to her over the chair -- the warmth rolling off him, the concentration on his face, the way he looked into her face once the ship was bursting into flames on the screen in front of them --

She leans in slowly, the ship still exploding, and kisses the corner of his mouth, holding her mouth there -- as she expected, as she hoped, he turns his face slowly so his mouth meets hers, the initial shock and tension of what they were doing melting away into something fiercer, harder, faster, like they were actually about to die on the bridge -- she focuses on the sensuality, how he leans in to kiss her hard and is liable to fuck her in the captain’s chair except she pulls away and says, “Wow, not here, I don’t care if the cameras are off and everything -- _not here_.”

She’s so aroused she feels drunk with it, and it’s a blur as to how they leave the simulation and campus and end up in Spock’s apartment, the door she’s pressed up against bringing her back to the moment -- realizing she’s there, that this is _going to happen_, that the whole -- that she wants this now, right now, and even if she can’t justify it, she doesn’t _care_, that’s how much she just wants him now.

He seems to get that as they unzip their uniform jackets. When their jackets drop to the floor, they take a split second to acknowledge the annoying red and black turtlenecks that they pull off fluidly after so much practice.

Nyota keeps her shields up, mostly for her own protection when they wrap around each other and he carries her into his room, laying her on his bed, naked except for her skirt and boots, he in his pants and she’s -- she doesn’t want him to know how fucking turned on she is by this furtive, half-undressed fuck between their classes and underneath everyone’s noses.

She writhes under him so she can feel the press of her skirt bunched up around her ribs, his pants hastily pushed down his hips as he fucks her hard and fast, and they don’t talk -- there’s no easy banter, no sudden declarations of _it was you all along_, nothing like that -- for Nyota, it’s new, not having to show off how funny and smart she is even when someone is trying to fuck her senseless. She fists his sheets and bedspread, screams louder than she allows herself to in the dorms, makes up for closing him off mentally by working every inch of her body -- she takes Spock in deeper, digs her heels into the small of his back deeper, rocks against him harder, exhales hot against his ear but never articulates a word or his name, just a priceless moan that should speak volumes (at the very least, it should say more than _this isn’t a student-teacher kink, this is a you’re-so-fucking-hot-and-smart-and-oh-your-teeth-against-my-collarbone-yes kink_, which he’ll never believe now.)

“That was literally extraordinary,” Spock says afterwards.

They lie parallel on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, her skirt still hitched up, her panties abandoned somewhere, and Spock -- Nyota looks over and notices he hasn’t even done up his pants again, and looks at his profile. He’s staring straight up at the ceiling, tilting his chin up, breathing deeply before he catches her looking by a quick turn of his face to hers.

“That’s a pretty apt descriptor,” she replies.

He searches her face for a moment and she hates how completely unreadable he is.

“This cannot interfere with our work,” Spock says.

“Of course not.”

“And we must remain free of emotional compromise.”

“That was never an issue.”

“Indeed?” Spock asks, and she can hear the intrigue in his voice, the subtext of _this is new_.

“I’ve yet to engage a romantic partner who elicits significant romantic-emotional feelings in me,” she replies as she folds an arm under her head and glances up at the ceiling.

“Those were carefully chosen words,” he replies.

“It’s not the first time I’ve said them.”

The weight on the bed shifts and Nyota sees Spock flip onto his stomach, lean up on his elbows, and, almost playfully (certainly the most playful and light she’s ever seen him), look at his folded hands as he opens his mouth to speak.

“You’re smiling,” she interrupts before he can say anything. “Why are you smiling?”

“This is the emotional response you have elicited from me,” he says. “I have had Terran partners before, and Vulcan ones, one Deltan and one Tellarite --”

“Uh, you get around,” Nyota says. “Can I note that? Because --”

“I am an ambassador’s son,” he replies, and he continues to avoid her eyes. “Not only that, but half-Terran. After I was involved in an... incident at school, we only stayed on Vulcan during the school year. My mother insisted my horizons be broadened, and so we traveled extensively.”

“Looks like you took some liberties with those horizons,” she grins.

“My mother is fully aware of my activities,” Spock says.

“Well, so is mine, but I’ve rarely heard of that kind of -- free discourse between mothers and sons.”

“She is an exceptional woman in every way,” he says, and she -- no, those are not emotional feelings developing in the pit of her stomach because he spares a smile for his mom from the corner of his mouth that he thinks she can’t see.

“Anyway, you were saying?” Nyota asks.

“Yes -- you are the first of all those to know and then articulate precisely what I was thinking as I was thinking it,” Spock says. “Post-coitally.”

“This is officially, by far, the most surreal conversation of my fucking life,” she replies.

“‘Your fucking life’ meaning your lifespan to date or your years of sexual activity? Not that they are mutually exclusive, but I am curious --”

“You’re babbling,” she interrupts. “And both. Of my entire fucking life.”

“I am attempting to -- perhaps not pay you a compliment, but rather explain --”

“Of course not,” she sighs.

“I believed I showed my appreciation adequately during the proceedings, as you yourself did.”

“When you could speak Standard again, you said it was ‘literally extraordinary’, which thanks to the adverb implies that it is literally ‘something which wouldn’t happen every day’, like an aberration from your schedule.”

“Nyota,” Spock says suddenly, and Nyota watches him shift to cover her with his body, one of his hands touching her hair and gently threading through it, his eyes studying her eyes and then her mouth steadily. “I say this now when we have breached one more level of acquaintance, perhaps the most personally and culturally significant space that can exist between sentient beings.” He pauses and lets his hand rest at the back of her neck. “I am thankful that, through our myriad interactions and experiences, we have come to know each other like this. I hope this will not be the last time.”

She stares back at him, her brain working overtime to process all of that -- it’s Standard, but something she’s never heard before, not in any language, not from anyone or any thing.

“What a load of crap,” she says with a smile. “That’ll be my next presentation for Advanced Phonology -- the artful use of bullshit in social situations.”

“A healthy sense of irony,” he notes.

Nyota nods her agreement, sealing it with a grin and a light kiss to his mouth, and then flips him over for one more round before getting back to campus.

*

She doesn’t stay long at Spock’s that day and gets back to campus in time for dinner with Gaila.

Gaila sits down and, because she’s Gaila, says, “Nyota. You have had at least three orgasms since I last saw you this morning.”

“Yeah,” Nyota replies, and she looks down to pick at whatever food she doesn’t remember ordering and isn’t really inclined to eat -- fuck, she can’t stop _smiling_.

“You should fuck him regularly,” Gaila declares as she tries to decide what side of her sandwich to attack first.

“Could be a she, you heteronormative thing,” Nyota points out. “Or ze.”

“No,” Gaila says, but she humors Nyota and looks her over carefully. She adds, “This is more than someone you desperately humped in a library due to midterm stress, and this is more than just some fuck. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“I could be wrong,” Gaila shrugs. “But you ordered an octopus burger with a side of grand eggplant, so either they left you _famished_ or your afterglow is causing serious problems with your sensory perception.”

Kirk suddenly plops down at their table, next to Gaila and across from Nyota, pokes at his food for five seconds, and then looks at Nyota carefully.

“Something different about you,” he says.

“She’s had _sex_,” Gaila informs him.

“Gaila!” Nyota hisses.

“Well, obviously, but with whom?” Kirk asks, and he leans forward, chin on his hands, squinting slightly as if it’s some intricate algorithm he’s using to pry into her personal life. “Not with anyone we know, or they would also be here, and they’d both be blushing and awkward and it’d be gross, since a random mid-afternoon fuck is kind of a crime of passion, you know? And I know it’s random because --”

“It was Gary,” Nyota says. “And he was great. He kept crying your name, though; it was a little disconcerting, but not surprising.”

“Gary’s an acquired taste,” Kirk replies, his chin still on his hands, looking too sly and completely unflappable. “I mean, he’s amazing every time, but the first time you’re so _what just happened_ that I don’t think you’d be here having dinner like your world wasn’t blown up and remade without having to leave a bed.”

Nyota glances at Gaila, who is considering the statement and nods slightly, but not too enthusiastically.

“What?!” Kirk asks, because of course he noticed. “Tell me Gary’s not the best you ever had. I will fight you, Gaila.”

Gaila leans over to smush Kirk’s face between her hands and then shows Nyota the result. “How can you dislike this? _How_?”

“You don’t like me?” Kirk asks Nyota, his smushed mouth making the words barely intelligible.

“Where would you get something like that?” Nyota asks carefully.

“Your best friend,” Kirk replies with a tilt of his head towards Gaila.

“I’m going to go,” Nyota says.

“What about your octopus and eggplant?” Gaila asks.

“What about who you’re boning this week?” Kirk asks.

“Oh, Jim,” Gaila sighs. She releases his face and kisses his cheek, much more affectionately and gently than she’s seen them treat each other... ever. It’s definitely time for her to get the hell out of the cafeteria, out of student life, out of the Academy, and get the hell away from dipshits like Jim Kirk. The rest of the universe awaits.

*

The Battles of Vulcan and Earth happen three weeks later.

Yeah.

Cadets on the Enterprise, more than once, would laugh a little sheepishly and joke, “I’d give anything to be back on campus in a lecture right now.”

A conditional statement: if she could bring back Vulcan and its six billion inhabitants just by giving up the past 36 hours of her life and finding herself safely ensconced in San Francisco again, then she would. She would take the Kobayashi Maru yet again with Jim Kirk, who was a fuckwad and hacked it (and _using Gaila_ to do it, fuck, he was _scum_); she would worry about her capstone paper for Pike and whether she should bother applying to summer internships when the Enterprise was about to have its rosters drafted any day -- yes, of course she would.

Since that’s not how life or the space-time continuum works -- she smiles tightly at every jackass who makes that joke and snaps at them to follow up on what she needs.

*

Kirk finally, _finally_ wins her over after the Narada incident.

On the way back to Earth from Titan on just their impulse engines, Nyota spends nearly the entire trip at her console (yeah, fuck _everyone_, this is hers and she will hurt anyone who tries to claim otherwise) updating Starfleet on everything that happened.

It's after six hours that Kirk materializes next to her with a mug of coffee that he sips while she works.

"Yes, Captain?" she asks as she reviews a quick response she had just received from an admiral.

"So here's what I'm thinking," he begins. "You get up and that nice comm officer Philips over there subs in for you while you shower, eat, sleep, and remember you're actually _not_ a machine… _Nyota_."

Okay. That? May have been a mistake, the whole public display of affection thing with Spock.

But to be fair, she genuinely thought that she would never see him again. _Ever._

(Or that she would see a holo of his and Kirk's heads on pikes after the Romulans found them and tortured the shit out of them -- these were the two most likely scenarios, statistically speaking.)

And if he pleaded through their brief hand-to-hand contact, just lay open his pure absolute _want_ and _need_ as he stood on the transporter pad for what he thought would be the last time and looked at the last friendly face he would ever see -- for fuck's sake, she would have crawled into his skin and taken some of that pain, if that's what it took. If all he needed was a kiss and reassuring hands on his neck, and to hear that someone was waiting for him -- it was the least she could do for another sentient being. For a friend.

"I admire your poker face," Kirk says, interrupting her thoughts. "I wonder where you learned that."

"I'm a communications officer," she replies. "Correction: I'm an _excellent_ communications officer, and I would be a shitty one if I couldn't control the most expressive part of my body."

"Take a break, Lieutenant," Kirk says.

"And you?" she asks. "How long was _your_ break?"

Standard is amusing like that -- if her voice had been softer, that would have been a concerned, affectionate statement from one friend to another, but Nyota made sure it was a challenge, that she would sit here until they reached Earth and then some if Kirk was going to insist on space cowboy-ing all the way home in the captain's chair.

"I wasn't supposed to be on this ship, remember? No room assignment." he says before he offers her a half-smile. "I've got my coffee and that chair over there -- I'm good."

There it is, she realizes. Sympathy. The one thing she had never been able to feel for Jim Kirk, because who could sympathize with the son of a war hero? The spoiled, delinquent son of a war hero --

Whose mother's exploits across the galaxy have made the news every six months of Nyota's life (and maybe now, maybe one day, she can tell Jim that she knows this because Winona Kirk was an idol for her growing up -- a new planetary system every week, kicking ass and taking names so she could return and kick their asses again -- admired her strength to do her duty -- and it wasn't until she saw that weathered smile on Jim's face that she really wondered about the boys in the holos, footnotes to two illustrious parents).

Who slept with everything that moved (but somehow, and she still doesn't know how, managed to make _Gaila_ fall in love with him when none of them were looking -- Standard Federation English human love, or Gaila would have used her own word for what she felt, but when Gaila had recapped the whole thing to her, Nyota had asked seven or eight times, "Really? You said LOVE?"

Gaila had nodded, tears in her eyes, and after all that? Gaila had forgiven Jim for his epic cheating douchebaggery because Gaila, being brilliant enough to liberate herself as an eight-year-old, brilliant enough to enter Starfleet, brilliant enough to _survive_ the destruction of the _Proxima_ and message them to say that she and Gary were alive and waiting for them in San Francisco -- Gaila had to have seen something there to fall in love with, and forgive, and stick with).

Who was an arrogant asshole (but -- and this incident/clusterfuck/disaster was the definitive proof -- one of those arrogant assholes whose arrogance was completely justified like Nyota's was).

Who was standing over her now at her console, sounding as tired and put through hell as his shirt looked, and she realized he still hadn't changed out of his fighting-the-Romulans gear.

And she's not a woman who will take care of any man who comes her way.

She slips her earpiece off and motions to Philips, who takes over smoothly. She takes Jim's coffee cup and links her arm with his, and leads him off the bridge.

"Where are we -- hold on, I have things -- Sulu, you have the con?"

The door swishes open and then closes behind them. "When they give you the ship," Nyota begins as they walk down the corridors to another turbolift, "Some nice badass yeoman will beat you into submission and get you to eat and sleep and take breaks like everyone else."

"What else is a liberal arts degree for in this day and age? I mean really," he laughs dryly.

"But I'm going to take you to my room…"

"Tell me more," he leers.

"And you're going to take off your clothes…"

He looks at her expectantly and she smiles.

"And then we're going to synthesize meals and eat them together."

"That's your kink? Watching naked people eat?"

"If it is?"

"And what about you?" he asks. "First officer's quarters are probably bigger than a lieutenant's…"

"I'll see him later," she says. "You won't hog the covers, right?"

"You’ll molest me in my sleep, right?"

"Maybe if you're good."

"Really?"

"No, not even then."

"Dammit," he laughs. "Okay, it’s an okay plan. Let's go do this."

"Let's."


	7. This Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at the year between the _Narada_ incident and the start of the five-year mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For waldorph's birthday -- she asked for K/S from Gary's POV. Happy birthday, bb! With bonus Pike, Number One, and Winona!

"So I need you to do me a favor," Kirk says as everyone is getting ready to leave Casa Spork for the night. He pulls Gary aside and ignores the looks they're getting from placid Spock on the couch, McCoy pulling on his jacket, and Uhura and Gaila standing near McCoy, also giving them the side-eye.

"What?" Gary asks them. "Can't two best friends whisper quietly to each other the night before a five-year mission that will separate them possibly forever?"

"You have a gift with words," Kirk says. "Now shut up and get over here."

He pulls Gary into the kitchen and glares at everyone until they stop watching/listening and start conversing quietly in the living room. "So… what are your plans tomorrow?" Kirk asks as he closes the shutters on the ledge that open from the kitchen into the living room.

"Uh, you know, what we've been talking about for the past week," Gary says. "I'm coming with all of you on the _Cochrane_ to spacedock and sitting up in the command booth for the _Enterprise_'s launch."

"Yeah," Kirk says slowly, rubbing the back of his neck as he avoids Gary's look. "I need you to… not do that."

"_What_?" Gary asks.

"Spock's been -- well, he’s sticking with his decision. He's going to New Vulcan. The colony. Whatever."

"Are you kidding? You said you had some foolproof last ditch --"

"No I'm not _kidding_ about my -- _whatever_ choosing to go to tend to his decimated people instead of patrolling the edges of the galaxy for the next five years, Gary," Kirk snaps. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. "Sorry. I'm -- yeah. Sulu's going to take that position for now, and some dipshit second year is going to be my science officer, and basically I'm going to die in the first five minutes so could you do me the biggest favor and make sure that Spock gets on the damn supply ship to the colony?"

Gary sighs and nods. "Yeah, I'll babysit your boyfriend and make sure he gets on his shuttle."

"Thanks, man."

"You gonna be okay?" Gary asks before Kirk steps out of the kitchen. "I mean -- five years, Captain. Crew of however-many-Starfleet-could-spare. Separated from this guy who's kind of come to mean everything to you."

"Well, don't mince words, tell me what's _really_ at stake," Kirk laughs. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives Gary a small smile. "Yeah. I'm -- I'm so unbelievably excited. It sucks that Spock won't come, but he says he's gotta do this. So we'll go our separate ways and… we'll see what happens."

Gary nods and gives Kirk his best reassuring smile, but from the look Kirk gives him, it apparently isn't as reassuring as he'd hoped.

"What about you, Captain Mitchell?" Kirk asks. "You gonna be okay with this subletting our cushy place until the _Exeter_'s ready next year?"

"Fuck yeah I am," Gary laughs. "It's not like I won't be on her and in her all the time, either, I mean someone's gotta --"

"Make pre-flight tests sound as filthy as possible?"

"Exactly!"

There was a hesitant moment between them until they closed the distance and pulled each other in for a tight hug, the tightest they could manage without actually breaking bones or suffocating each other.

"Don't die because I swear to all that is sexy and filthy in this and all possible worlds, I will murder you if you die," Gary mutters near Kirk's ear.

"You and Bones both," Kirk laughs. "He'll keep me safe, promise."

"I know, I know, and remember to keep Uhura on your good side so she doesn't conveniently arrange for your murder on some planet, okay?"

"I'll try -- I think she likes me now. She doesn't _loathe_ me; that's progress, right?"

"Whatever you did to make that happen? Keep it up."

The kitchen door opens and McCoy pokes his head in. "Come on, our cab's downstairs. I don't know if you heard, Mitchell, but we've got kind of a big day tomorrow."

"Have you got a big day tomorrow?" Gary asks over Kirk's shoulder. "I thought you'd left and come back already. Five years are over. Jim and I just stayed here holding each other the whole time."

"That's way too emotional for someone who used to fuck me on a regular basis, Gary," Kirk laughs. "Bones, come on! One last hug for all of us!"

McCoy sighs and stretches out his arm so Kirk could grab it and pull him in to his and Gary's fused hug, pulling his head down a little so they could all laugh in the strange little cocoon-tent they made with their faces and hunched shoulders.

"I'm going to miss you fuckers so much," Gary says. "Next time, Jim, you're not allowed to take _all of our friends_ with you on a mission, okay?"

"I still can't believe you got Gaila in the divorce," Kirk replies. "Now we're definitely not going to win the 2260 Hottest Starship Crew Pageant."

"It's gonna be awesome when we're up there, too, promise," Gary says. "Just make it through the first _day_ \-- I've heard it's a piece of cake after that."

The kitchen door opened again and Spock stands there, holding the door open and standing off to the side to let everyone exit.

"Come on, Spock," Gary says. "Join in?"

"I appreciate the gesture," he replies.

Gary looks at Kirk, who's staring at Spock and licks his lips unconsciously -- sadly enough, Gary notes, not in some kind of _hotttttt we're going to have going away sex yeah_ way, but more like _we're going to have going away sex and I've never laughed or frowned so much as I have in the past year, thanks to this guy_.

"Come on," Gary says to McCoy, who had stepped away from all of them when Spock opened the door. "Cab's waiting, you said?"

"Yeah," McCoy replies. "Let's go."

Gary takes a few steps out, just enough for Kirk to grab McCoy by the arm and launch himself into another hug, which makes Gary laugh dryly -- laugh mostly so it's not just Spock's blank moodiness battling Kirk's relentless optimism, especially when McCoy's own sulkiness puts him on Spock's side.

"Come on, Jim, you're gonna have him on the damn ship with you," Gary says, forcing another laugh out.

"Gary, watch him -- I'm not letting go until Bones smiles, okay?" Kirk says. "Because we're going on a trip and he's got _no reason_ to be this bitchy."

"Are all of you done crying in the kitchen?" Uhura calls out from the living room. "Some of us have a mission start tomorrow!"

"Hold on, we're getting Bones to smile," Gary calls back as he watches, the smile becoming a little less forced as Kirk clings to McCoy and finally, finally makes McCoy laugh and wrap his arms around Kirk's middle a little firmer.

"Oh, Leonard," Gaila says as she pushes open the shutters and leans on the ledge separating the kitchen and living room. "Are you only just now enjoying the last night you're not responsible for whether Jim lives or dies?"

"Subtle," Gary says as he gives her a thumbs down.

"I'd like a kitchen hug, too," Gaila announces as she leaves the ledge and walks around to the kitchen door. Her hand brushes against Gary's belt buckle as she says, "And you stop being so -- _you_."

"You first," Gary retorts. He looks over to Spock, still holding the door open, still watching everyone embrace in his kitchen, and gives him a nudge with his foot. "Still not joining in? I'd jump on getting all this tactile affection while I can."

"Not every individual is prone to tactile expressions, no matter their species or cultural conditioning," Spock replies. "Orions, for example, are not a tactile people at all -- cultural and religious restrictions implore them to only make contact in battle or with immediate family, but Gaila is particularly affectionate and so does away with her conditioning and embraces her friends."

"And you're not touchy-feely, even for a Vulcan," Gary says.

"Precisely," he says. "Though I may have to break that personal habit of mine in order to pry these people off Jim in a timely fashion."

"I heard that!" Kirk calls out from the middle of the Gaila and McCoy sandwich. "Okay guys, come on, Spock is about to get all alpha male on his kitchen and my ass. We'll see each other tomorrow." Kirk looks at McCoy and grins. "We'll see each other for the next _five years_, dammit."

They all leave the kitchen except for Spock in the doorway giving Kirk his finest tense eyebrow raise. Uhura is still waiting by the front door, her coat tightly cinched at her waist and her eyebrows raised in annoyance. Gary briefly wonders if it's proportional, the cinch of the coat and the lift of her eyebrows.

"Are we ready?" she asks. "Spock, will I see you tomorrow before you leave?"

"No," he replies from the kitchen. "I suppose you will not," and having said that, Spock leaves the doorway to the kitchen and walks across the apartment to her and embraces her firmly. She presses a kiss to his cheek and holds the nape of his neck for a moment, and then pulls away.

"Night, you two," Gary calls out as Gaila pulls him out the door and McCoy pushes him all out.

"Night," Kirk says from the ledge and Gary honestly really truly desperately hopes with every fiber fragment mote atom and molecule of his being that it's not the last time he sees him.

*

The launch from spacedock is at 3 PM, but the _Enterprise_'s crew has to be at the shuttleport at 7 AM. Guests, friends and family aren't due at the shuttleport for the launch event until 1 PM, not that any one sending someone into space for a mission for _years_ would be able to sleep in on a day like today.

8 AM finds Gary knocking at the door of Casa Spork (that portmanteau couple name was just too easy) until Spock answers, hair messed, dressed only in shorts, the pleading look gone as soon as he sees it's Gary.

"Thought Jim forgot his toothbrush or something?" Gary asks.

"He had already forgotten his shirts -- _all_ his shirts, he left folded in a closet drawer," Spock notes. "He did come back and get them." Spock swallows a little and asks, "How can I help you? I am about to begin packing for my journey."

"Well, I'd like to help," Gary says. "Who's gonna remind _you_ that you forgot your shirts and whatever stuff you need?"

"I will be packing light, as you say," Spock says as he stands aside.

"I don't know if you noticed, but all of us kind of _live_ light." Gary stands in the living room and beams at Spock as he closes the door. "So if you haven't got much to pack -- let's get pizza for breakfast."

"That is a disgusting suggestion I can concur with completely," Spock says.

"I'm ordering from the place near the dorms -- none of this synthesized bullshit, though you can get me a cup of coffee, if you'd be so kind, my host?"

As Gary orders from his PADD, he watches Spock pull a cup of coffee from the synthesizer and place it on the counter, and then stand there for several long seconds, not moving. Gary finishes and tosses his PADD on the couch, then leans on the window ledge into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"You will have to pour out the sugar and milk yourself," Spock says without turning around. "Jim always prepared the coffee to your preferences. I have never cared for it. For coffee. Or for your preferences, if I may be absolutely frank."

"Don't worry about it," Gary says slowly, because if he doesn't acknowledge the mini-meltdown Spock almost had over _milk and sugar_, all of this will go a little easier. Maybe. He hopes. "Do you want to watch the launch coverage or play a movie? Or music?"

"Whichever you prefer. I will be in the bedroom, gathering my clothes."

"When does your shuttle to the supply ship leave?"

"3 PM. Just after the _Enterprise_ launches."

"Good, we've got time," Gary says as he and Spock switch places -- Gary walks into the kitchen and pours some sugar into his coffee, Spock heads down the hall into the master bedroom. "Packing your entire life up before undertaking a species-building humanitarian mission can be fun, Spock! Let's make it fun today!"

He can almost hear Spock's glare from two rooms away, and grins to himself a little grimly as he sips his coffee and heads down the hall into the bedroom.

*

After the Battles of Vulcan and Earth, the cadets who survived were invited to stay in the Academy dorms until their next assignments.

(It was probably insane of Starfleet to automatically promote every cadet who survived the conflicts to officers on active duty, their training made up in the year+ between promotion and departure. However, according to _someone_ in Starfleet Med, it was also the best way to move forward -- get the cadets back on the job as soon as possible and a whole new class of cadets to begin training 18 months and so they could start from scratch. Start _Starfleet Academy_ from scratch, with all new instructors and cadets. It was a little hideous for Gary to think him and his friends were the last products of the Academy as they knew it, but Pike would be chiming in once in a while to the Curriculum Board as an Admiral, and Uhura thought that would be the only thing that saved it from all from being a massive clusterfuck.)

Kirk stayed in the dorm for three whole days before Gary walked into the room McCoy and Kirk shared to find Kirk packing his bag and McCoy sitting in his desk chair looking mostly desolate.

"Headed somewhere?" Gary asked Kirk. "You couldn't have misunderstood that Scottish guy when he --"

"I'm moving in with Spock," Kirk replied. "Where are all my socks, dammit."

"Uh, isn't that -- are you and Spock --"

"Yeah, we're a thing," Kirk said as he dove under his bed and started tossing socks out. "Yeah, he needs me there. No, he doesn't need to be put on _suicide watch_, Bones. No, he's not empathically leeching off me, _Gary_, and I'm not financially leeching off him, though his place is really awesome."

"I just think you're _rushing_ this -- I mean, who is this guy, anyway?" McCoy asked. "One minute he's bringing you up on charges of cheating --"

"I did cheat, though," Kirk replied as he stood up again and collected the socks from the floor. "Changed the conditions of the test is my phraseology, cheating is his -- we compromised because we're kind of great like that. Like adults and shit."

"But you don't _know_ this guy."

"I know him, Bones," Kirk said firmly. "I really do. I -- you don't understand."

"And you're not helping me understand! Dammit, Jim! Just give me some way --"

"I don't want to _talk about it, okay_," Kirk yelled back. "Right now, I just -- it needs to be me and Spock. We need to figure this out."

"Figure what out?" Gary asked.

"Just -- everything. This. Our lives. Everything."

"And you think diving in headfirst is going to do that?" McCoy snapped. "You're impulsive, Jim, but you're not _reckless_ or _stupid_."

"That's what you think I am?" Kirk asked.

"I said you're _not_."

"There's just some stuff we have to figure out together, okay," Kirk repeated. "And we need to be together to do it, and _I'm sorry_, Bones, but I think this is the right thing and I'll come crying back to you if the bad man hurts me, like I always do."

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, whatever." Kirk pulled the drawers open and picked up his shirts in one sweep of his arm and tossed them near his bag, then did the same for everything else. Gary took a few steps into the room and began packing the clothes into unfolded piles in Kirk's bag.

"Dammit, Mitchell, are you kidding me?" McCoy asked. "You're --"

"Jim kind of saved the world against some renegade Romulans," Gary said. "I think he can take care of himself against a handsy Vulcan, and he's right. We'll be here if shit goes south."

"Thanks for the backhanded support, I guess, but it's better than nothing," Kirk said as he glanced at McCoy.

"Know what? Don't need this. I don't need your damn aggravation, and your being reckless, and --"

"For fuck's sake, Bones!" Kirk yelled as McCoy was about to storm out. "I didn't die! Would you stop looking at me like that! I'm not going anywhere --"

"Except literally," Gary noted.

"Bones, please," Kirk pleaded as he walked over to McCoy and grabbed him firmly by the nape of the neck. Gary swallowed thickly and wished he really, really wasn't there, but there was no way out unless he jumped out one of the third-story windows. He looked down and shoved more clothes into Kirk's bag, and only occasionally looked up at them.

McCoy had leaned down and closed his eyes, leaning into Kirk and pressing their foreheads together while Kirk still had him by the back of the neck.

"I'm sorry," Kirk choked out. "I -- it was never gonna be that way between us -- not the way it is between -- between me and him and -- and _I'm sorry_ \--"

"Just finish it, kid," McCoy said, and Gary glanced up at them again -- McCoy still hadn't opened his eyes. "Just go, all right? If you have to go, then you have to go."

Gary glanced up from a folded shirt, just in time to see Kirk lean in and McCoy pull away, shake his head, and stand by the door, arms crossed over his chest.

"Can I pack now? Do I have your permission to pack?" Kirk said with a short little laugh.

"You have fun with Spock," McCoy said. "I'm grabbing breakfast somewhere. I'll see you when I see you."

"Message me where, I'll join you when Jim's done running away from home," Gary added.

When McCoy was gone, Gary packed a pair of pants and then asked, "Okay, _what was that_? And what is _this_?"

"Can't fuck around with Bones anymore," Kirk replied as he stared at his bag and then ran to the closet where some more of his clothes hung.

"So you've been with Spock this week?" Gary asked. "We got worried -- okay, I did, after I woke up at the bar and you weren't there anymore."

"Yeah, we went to his place and -- there's a lot we had to talk about. A lot we still have to talk about."

"And we can't be there?"

"No," Kirk said. "No, not for this."

Kirk nudged Gary aside, shoved as many uniform pants as he could fit into his bag, quickly zipped it up and slung the strap over one shoulder. "Look, it's just for now -- I can't be in these dorms right now."

"None of us can, Jim, but it's just a place to stay."

"I gotta go, but I'll call and stop by -- you haven't seen the last of me," Kirk laughed, and then he stepped out of the room and that was it.

*

"So what's the climate on this new planet like?" Gary asks as sits on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom. "Hot like Vulcan?"

"Temperate," Spock replies as he stands in front of the closet. "Like San Francisco, but several degrees warmer on average. Much more humid than Vulcan was."

"Okay," Gary says slowly. "So we don't need to get you stuff?"

"No, this wardrobe will be appropriate."

"Okay, so let's get packing!"

Gary stands up to walk over to the closet and help Spock, but Spock presses a button and starts a process of his closet _essentially_ folding itself up and depositing folded pants and shirts on a shelf that wasn't there before.

"So like, you're rich," Gary notes as he watches the closet. "'Cause I've never seen this shit before."

"Indeed?" Spock asks. "It can also be operated from a PADD, but there is something strangely satisfying about pressing the button."

"Just don't do it with a hammer or anything."

"I believe Jim took the hammer," Spock says.

"What the fuck is this place," Gary sighs. "Does it also do socks?"

Spock nods and sits on the floor of his bedroom, cross-legged, and Gary has to sigh again, because he had thought -- who was he kidding. Jim had to have known it would be a mope-fest or he wouldn't have called it a _favor_ \-- he would have said, "Come over and hang out with Spock for a few hours and have fun, you know!"

"Know what you'll be doing on the colony yet?" Gary asks.

"Whatever they require of me," Spock replies.

"They know you're an academic, right?" Gary asks. "You're not trained for world-building. World-maintaining, yes, Starfleet material, yes, but founding and colonizing isn't in your repertoire. I mean, hell, you're a computer scientist. You can set up their world network and connect them to Starfleet -- then what?"

"I have many diverse qualifications --"

"Right, tri-d grandmaster, I forgot," Gary adds.

"Gary, if _I_ could not talk myself into joining the _Enterprise_, what makes you think you can?" Spock asks.

"Because you're compromised and I'm awesome," Gary replies. "Like, I still have a shred of objectivity here -- I didn't lose everything. Frankly, neither did you."

There’s a loud grinding noise from the closet and Gary walks over to it -- yup. Jammed.

"Got caught on this sheer robe of yours," Gary says. "Speaking of which -- what?"

"A meditation robe -- apparently, I will not be needing that."

"Parts of it could still make a nice handkerchief."

Spock raises an eyebrow, but gets up and fixes the closet mechanism anyway.

*

Kirk, Gary, and two or three other upper-year students were promoted after the Battles of Vulcan and Earth, and then ranked according to commendations and grades -- Kirk, having saved a planet and done a whole lot besides, was at the top of that list and therefore first to get an available ship, which happened to be the _Enterprise_. Gary was second, having been the command-track upper-year cadet organizing the survivors onboard the _Proxima_'s shuttle. The others didn't accept their promotions.

"Spock turned down a captaincy," Kirk said as he let Gary into Spock's (and his?) apartment one afternoon. "He's taking care of stuff at Command today --"

"So you asked him?" Gary asked. "To be your first?"

"Yeah -- this means he's going to say yes, right? I mean, what else could it be?"

They found out later that night, when Gary had a mouthful of pizza and was trying to explain the latest thing he and Gaila had tried out of the _Risian Pleasure Index_.

"Captain," Spock said as an acknowledgement to Gary as the door closed silently behind him.

"Hey honey, look, it's our first guest," Kirk said cheerfully as Spock approached the couch. "Also, it's been a while, I know, but -- his name's Gary."

"Jim, I must speak to you privately," Spock said without another look to Gary.

"Oh. Okay." Kirk wiped his hands on his pants and climbed over the back of the couch to lead the way down the hall. He called out to Gary, "It's okay, probably needs a reminder of what lube I like. Depends on the situation, right?"

Gary let out a loud and completely, totally _fake_ chuckle as he arched his neck and stopped chewing to better his hearing. It didn't help in understanding Spock's half; luckily, Jim was a conscientious speaker who repeated comments and questions before replying for the benefit of his audience.

"Like fucking _shit_ you're resigning! Your commission? I get it if you don't want your promotion, that's _fine_, but stupid me, I was hoping --"

Then there was Spock's murmuring and Kirk yelling back, "Your _what_? What is this _bullshit_ \-- no, okay, I can accept _destiny_ as an excuse from the other you because he was like, a million, but _you said it yourself_ \--"

Gary covered his mouth and hated his timing, and hated the fact that the only conversations they had anymore were along these lines. Before the _Narada_, there was all this possibility and choice laid out in front of them, and they could go anywhere and do anything; after, there was all this possibility and choice laid out in front of them, and anything could happen, anything could tip the balance and upset the delicate state of civilization as they knew it. The universe was so much more than they had been taught, and there was so much more at stake than they had thought.

"We're all scared," Kirk pleaded. "Don't do this, please. We said we'd try this, okay, we _agreed_!"

Gary could feel it traveling down the hallway, all that need and fear and desperation, turning him cold and sick all over -- he blocked out everything else being said and just left, walking alone back to the dorms where everyone was staying.

Gaila wasn't there when he got back, and Gary felt sicker but also relieved that he didn't have to explain anything to anyone except himself.

But Jim didn't come back to stay at the dorms, not that night or that week or ever again, so who the fuck knew anything anymore?

*

"Fuck, I should go with Jim," Gary says as he pops open his second beer. He and Spock, having packed his entire life into a couple of bags in 20 minutes (after repairing the closet), are lying in bed watching the full day's coverage of the _Enterprise_ launch.

Spock has a beer, too, and if it were an awesome world, their friends would run in through the door, Kirk would throw himself on the bed between them, spend way too much time mocking the anchorperson, and he'd only let Spock have a sip of beer if it had been in his mouth first.

Instead, he and Spock drink alone on the too-empty bed in the too-quiet apartment and Gary sighs a little louder.

"I'm so fucking selfish," Gary says. "Jim wouldn't have to be out there alone if I wasn't such an asshole."

"Jim is not alone," Spock says, mostly against the lip of his beer bottle as he watches the screen for any sign of the elusive Jim while they do live shots of the last-minute equipment loading. "He has everyone he needs."

"He asked me to be his first," Gary says, and then looks over quickly. "Before he asked you, or maybe he just said that to make me feel better. Whatever, point is I could be out there with all of them but instead, I'm going to wait here for my ship and _watch_ all of them here, totally impotent. It just sucks."

"I was too old for reverse psychology as a three-year-old, and I am still too old for it, Gary," Spock notes. "Even when you are feeding me an 8% ABV barely-chocolate stout."

"I can't be feeding you something that I got from your damn cooler," Gary says. "Well, I can, technically, but I'm _not_. Just let me know when you're ready to pass your stout on to me."

"Not yet," Spock says, his fingers tightening around the beer.

"You miss him yet?" Gary asks after a moment.

"Please stop talking," Spock replies.

Gary glances over again as Spock slouches infinitesimally against the pillows and headboard, his eyes focused on the vidscreen and the beer poised against his lips.

*

They had a Remembrance Party. Six months after the _Narada_, what was left of Starfleet gathered at Command in their dress uniforms for some services commemorating everything that happened and everything lost. It was somber and respectful, and Gary couldn't help notice Spock at the end of their row in his science navy blues, gripping Kirk's hand.

"So, party at our place," Kirk said once the services concluded.

Along with their usual group, the Scottish guy who Kirk had made his chief engineer took a whole day off from the ship's bowels to come over to Kirk and Spock's apartment, as did Sulu and Chekov, a pair of marrieds in Uhura and Gaila's year that Kirk had made tactical officer and navigator, respectively.

And what Gary loved about that group of people, about what Kirk did to them all, was that they knew solemnity wasn't the only part of remembering.

Like the story of Kirk and Sulu's space jump, and how it became more outrageous and injected with bravado with each telling.

"So then like, Olson bursts into flames," Sulu said, gripping his hair passionately to demonstrate the situation’s insanity. "And I swear, Kirk speeds up and tackles me mid-air, propelled by his pure incredulity at this _bullshit_."

"Right, and I'm like, screeching at him, _OLSON HAD THE CHARGES!_" Kirk laughed.

"_I KNOW_," they all yell back at that point in the story.

"Fuck," Sulu deadpanned. "And what do we do, just what the fuck do we _do_? Cue action hero Jim."

"We blow that shit to pieces," Kirk laughed.

"With stolen blasters, and then we free fall again because it's the only way Pav will let me cop a feel off another dude," Sulu added. "Only if _my life depends on it_."

"And then we got beamed back to the ship and just held each other on the floor of the transporter room for a while," Kirk said. “I was the big spoon.”

"You did not!" Chekov countered. "I was there and you -- there was crouching and nothing more!"

"Jim, I was all over you, just how we were while we fell off the drill," Sulu said, and they're all just buzzed enough to laugh at Kirk pushing Sulu down on the floor and laying on him, trying to recapture how they gripped each other as they fell.

Gary laughed and nudged Kirk's ass with the toe of his boot, and then looked over at Spock, who had a drink and an eyebrow raised at them. Uhura leaned over and pat Spock’s arm, something like consolation and pity in her expression, and then Kirk got off Sulu and walked on his knees over to Spock on the couch.

"You _love me_," he crooned quietly as people fell into their own conversations momentarily. Gary leaned against Gaila, who was half-asleep anyway, and tried not to listen. "From the second you kicked me off the transporter pad so you could go on your suicide mission --"

"I did no such thing," Spock replied.

"From the second you knocked me unconscious and marooned me on an ice planet --"

"That was necessary," Spock noted.

"From the second you threw me on a console, and almost fucked _and_ killed me in front of your dad," Kirk laughed.

"You were encouraged to provoke me, and you follow orders to the letter when it suits you," Spock said.

"You capital-letters-love me all the time no matter what," Kirk said as he crawled into Spock's lap and wrapped his arms around Spock's neck. Gary closed his eyes and rested his face against Gaila's hair, and her arms wrapped around his middle a little more, but he could still hear Jim -- who was he kidding, he was straining to hear like his life depended on it.

"Loved me since the ready room, on the way back to Earth," Kirk said in a rough whisper against Spock's ear and jaw. "Since you tore your way into my pants, and told me, over and over again, _we should have died_, and I kept telling you, _we didn't_, and you wouldn't believe me until I proved it."

"Get a room, you two," Gary says just then, genuinely not sure from Kirk's tone if tears or humping are about to follow, and he doesn't even want to look at Spock's face.

"It's _our_ apartment," Kirk laughed, and he flicked his fingers at Gary's ear. Gary looked over just in time to see Kirk mouthing at Spock's jaw, mostly incomprehensible, mostly trying to make Spock lose his mind in front of their friends, apparently -- except, Gary noticed, everyone was deliberately _not_ looking, particularly _not_ McCoy, who had not-looked his way into the kitchen away from all that.

Spock finally pushed Jim off, resting his hands on Jim's thighs and nudging him towards the floor, and pliable drunk Kirk grinned and moved back to the floor, sitting at Spock's feet. "Bones, where are you?" Kirk called out from the floor. "Can we talk about how you're an ageist bastard and made fun of our baby prodigy and his amazing plan of amazingness?"

"Look," McCoy said as he walked back into the room and stood behind the couch and Gary's head. "It's just a little quirk of mine because I didn’t know better, but if I was going to take the advice of one person on how to save the galaxy, they damn well better shave on a regular basis."

"I shave!" Chekov shouted back.

"Your _face_," McCoy countered.

"Back off my jailbait, Doc," Sulu said as he wrapped his arms around Chekov from behind. "He gets _really_ scruffy; I have to shave him every six hours or he has a full Tolstoy beard."

They all laughed and McCoy sat on the arm of Uhura's chair. Conversation slowed just then as Gary watched them all watch each other, glance towards him occasionally (and Gaila, he supposed, the only ones not engaged to go on the _Enterprise_ with them).

"We made it," Kirk said softly as he pushed back against Spock's legs and rested his forehead against Spock's knee. "Isn't that fucking incredible?"

"Nicely done, us," Scotty said as he took a swig of his beer. "Nicely done."

*

Spock is stubborn, Gary thinks -- he knows this is true. Yet he loves logic, treasures that shit above most things, and --

"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" Gary asks. "I mean, you know the logical thing is to go with the _Enterprise_."

"How did you reach that conclusion?" Spock asks as he hands Gary his half-full beer, apparently tired of nursing it. "What did I miss? Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

"And why is the _Enterprise_ not an option?" Gary asks patiently, because seriously, this logic bullshit? To each their own, he would never begrudge anyone their philosophical and cultural trappings, but it could get downright dangerous without the ability to see beyond the framework.

"Were I to take the position of first officer, it would be for Jim, and only for Jim," Spock says.

"But you'd be helping way more people on the ship than you would on the colony as some damn middle management resources overseer or computer programmer or whatever," Gary replies. "Jim's a perk, and just -- ugh, _Spock_." He sighs deeply and wants to slam his head against the headboard until --

"It is possible for the most desired solution to also be the correct one," Spock finally, finally, _finally_ realizes.

"Way to go, champ," Gary says. "Can we go to the shuttleport now, and can get you on the ship? Gaila can drive. Fly. Whatever."

*

Nine months after the _Narada_, Pike was working from home, throwing himself (guardedly, of course, as his doctors recommended) into his new duties for the admiralty. He decided to take the initiative and invite the newest Starfleet captains under his guidance to a lunch at his place with him and his wife.

Gary shoved his mouth full of salad when Winona Kirk walked in and sat across from Gary, giving him an enigmatic, unbreakable smile.

"Congratulations, gentlemen," she said carefully, looking Jim and Gary in the eyes. She turned to Spock next to her and asked, "And I'm guessing you're here as Jim's first?"

"He's my arm candy, Mom, everyone knows that," Jim said. "What'd ship they give you?"

"The _Archer_," Winona said as she turned back to Jim. "Kind of a hulking piece of crap, but Starfleet recalled Frank to active duty and I named him my chief engineer -- he should get it running to code by our launch next summer."

"Not -- _Uncle_ \--" Gary began.

"Oh, none other," Jim said with the tightest smile he could manage for his mother. "They go _way_ back."

Gary shoveled more salad into his mouth and kept listening for any sign of Pike and his wife approaching, but there was none. The room was soaked in the Kirks' icy politeness and Spock's stony silence, and he hoped for _all_ their sakes that there would be some kind of alcohol at this lunch from hell.

"And Gary -- nicely done getting the _Exeter_," Winona said. "You deserve it after how you got those people off the _Proxima_. Why didn't they promote your friend, the Orion girl?"

"Not enough Command training," Gary said. "Like… none. Also, are there even enough ships for all these new captains? I don't think there are, if we're waiting until next year for the _Exeter_."

"A woman without command training," Winona sighed. "That's just irresponsible."

"Gaila -- that's her name, by the way, it's Gaila -- is really brilliant at engineering," Jim said. "Can't blame her for knowing what she's good at and sticking to that. She was ranked at the top --"

"Of her class, I'm sure, but there's not much class left for ranking, is there?" Winona asked. "I'm just --"

"That's why I said _was_, past tense, before the cadets were decimated," Jim replied. "But way to --"

"It's just irresponsible to only have one certification, especially when you're a woman and you _have_ to be just a little more flexible than your male counterparts," Winona replied.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jim asked.

"Why do you think I had so many assignments when you were growing up?" she asked. "This is _the military_, Jim, it's _a government job_ \-- you go where they tell you, and it's simply a fact: you'll go farther as a woman if you've been pushed around from department to department, whereas Spock here," she motioned with her thumb, "Science officer and administrator, and that's enough to be approved as first officer of the flagship if he wants it."

"Don't bring Spock into this."

"Should I bring _you_ into it?" she asked. "Command theory, no science, barely any engineering, and you're captain of the flagship. Meanwhile, I can't name a job I haven't done on a ship, and I'm given the _Archer_? A piece of shit that was finally decommissioned after being slammed by _one_ asteroid -- it's politics and television, Jim, don't kid yourself into thinking that you earned it."

"Mom," Jim laughed dryly, "You're just sweeping up parenting awards left and right; I don't know how you'll fit through the damn door with all of them." Jim took a roll from the basket in front of Gary and ripped a piece for himself, but then added, "And by the way, maybe I got the flagship because my training has been for a ship of its class -- how long has it been since you've had your qualifications renewed? How many _Constitution_ classes have you been on?"

"That's _right_, when you were on the _Enterprise_ for one day total," Winona replied, and Jim had to roll his eyes then, deflecting the fact of the matter. "_One day_. Which of us was on the ships that tested her components ten years ago? Who was submitting reports that led to the total overhaul of --"

"Sorry I'm late," Pike said as he rolled into the dining room, Number One behind him and taking her seat at one head of the table next to Gary. "Glad I could hear the sweet sounds of catching up with the Kirk family from upstairs."

"Just shooting the shit as usual," Winona replied. "How much longer have you got in the chair, Chris?"

"Too long," Pike sighed. "Can't take this convalescence bullshit, so I figured I'd get back to work however I could. How are all of you? Enjoying the salad, Mitchell?"

"I was hungry," Gary said a little meekly while Jim and his mother continued to glare at each other across the table and Spock watched Jim intently enough to bore holes into his face.

"So," Pike began. "One thing we're going to get clear now that I'm the admiral overseeing your captaincies -- you don't bullshit me. Simple as that. I volunteered for you three because I know you the best and, in Captain Mitchell's case, I know your situation well enough, I think, to assist. If anything, we'll get to know each other pretty well when the Kirks are off trolling their respective sectors and not tearing each other new ones in my dining room, am I right?"

Gary nodded and stole the abandoned roll off Jim's plate as he listened to Pike.

"And may I ask why I was invited, Admiral?" Spock asked.

"I just like looking at your face," Pike said.

"Always a charmer," Winona sighed. "So is this just a meet and greet --"

"Just catching up with friends," Pike said. "Friends who are going to probably cut years off my life at the end of this tour, but I don't mind -- probably just the shitty years at the end, right?"

"Always the optimist, sir," Jim said.

"I got a _sir_ out of you -- now that's exciting!" Pike laughed. "The parts of me that can still feel definitely tingled a little."

"Are you quite done making your guests uncomfortable with your dark sense of humor?" Number One asked from the other side of the table. "I am not your personal calendar, but apparently I must remind you of your therapy appointment in 90 minutes when we have not moved on from the salad course yet."

"Well said," Spock commented. "I will take a sandwich, if I may."

Gary kept his mouth stuffed as often as he could, but it was unnecessary as the rest of their little informal get together was uneventful, except when Winona stood up, announced she had another engagement, and said she would see them all soon -- and that was that, except for the resentment radiating off Jim in waves as they listened to the clicking of her boots fade away and finally disappear.

"I heard what she said, Jim," Pike said when she had gone.

"The part where my own mother is jealous of my ship, or some other humiliating part of the conversation I've managed to block out already?" Jim asked dryly.

"Look, you may not have deserved the flagship right off the bat, but I know you're going to earn it," Pike said, and then glanced at Gary. "Same goes for you, Mitchell, and the _Exeter_. Your 'big damn hero' acts have gotten your foot in the door, but now you have to work to stay there."

"And when my mom stages a coup and shoots my ship out of the sky?"

"It'll make for a damn fine movie," Pike laughed.

Lunch did wrap up eventually, but Pike kept Spock behind for a few moments while Number One escorted Jim and Gary to where they had left their coats. Jim stuck around to joke with Number One ("joke"?), while Gary loitered near the dining room like the nosy bastard he was. Naturally, he wasn't disappointed.

"Winona didn't convince you? Because I've gotta tell you -- she loves him and all, but her attitude -- it's not uncommon as the launch date gets closer. You're qualified, you've got experience and _clout_, even -- it's a _good choice_, going with Jim."

"Yet I cannot in good conscience abandon my species at this time," Spock said. "Good day, Admiral. I will notify you should anything change."

Gary strolled away from the door towards Jim as Spock walked out. Jim held out Spock's coat and grinned as Spock took it and slipped it on.

"Many thanks for hosting us today, Number One," Spock said.

"For your information, Commander Spock," Number One said, "The Admiral is the most logical human I have encountered on Earth. He takes what he is given, examines the parameters, and acts accordingly. You would do well and honor your culture of logic to accept his recommendation."

"Is this about the first officer thing?" Jim asked her, and he waved his hand around. "Look, if Spock doesn't want to, then he doesn't want to, okay? I'll handle myself. Somehow I managed to do pretty all right for myself those 25 years I went without him, and five more won't be too hard."

"However, you have done far better with my presence in close proximity to you," Spock said. "Even before we became acquainted, simply my presence on the same campus led you to a life of academic achievement and --"

"Shut up," Jim laughed. "You're such an asshole."

"Your choice in terms of endearment are strange, even for your general culture," Number One noted.

"Oh, it's -- it's not usually a term of endearment," Jim began to explain, but Number One raised her eyebrow at him.

"I am aware that it is not a term of endearment at all, Captain, and was commenting on your choice of that as one when there are millions in the collective languages you are both acquainted with," she said.

"Well, not millions," Gary interrupted. "I mean, there are millions of words in those languages, but they're not all capable of showing affection. Like adipose. That's gross. My little fat deposit, how I love you?"

"I believe 'adipose' could be an ironic term in my case, as I am at the lower end of the weight range for my height and build," Spock commented.

"No, I'm with Gary, that's just gross," Kirk said.

"Yet it could, technically --"

"I'm not --"

"Or sewer," Gary said. "My sewer, I love you, never be parted from me."

"Could you imagine life without sewers, though?" Kirk asked. "I genuinely love the existence of sewers. I would say that to a sewer."

"What have I done?" Gary heard Number One ask herself as she left them and entered the dining room again.

*

"Hey," Gary calls out when he spots Gaila standing by a shuttle in the hangar. "Ready to go?"

"It took you long enough," she sighs. "Where's Spock?"

"He… was right behind me," Gary says as he looks around. "Shit. Shit. How do you misplace a hot ass Vulcan in his officer blacks?"

"Oh, there he is," Gaila says as she points to another shuttle a few spots away. "Is that Spock's father?"

"Probably. Nice timing, Spock's dad," Gary notes. "Way older than I'd thought, though."

The older Vulcan stepped onto the shuttle and they watch Spock stand there for some additional moments before he turns and notices them by the other shuttle. Gary holds up Spock's bags and motions that he's about to throw them into the shuttle carelessly and break everything, which gets Spock to hustle just a little bit.

"Say goodbye to your dad?" Gary asks as they climb inside.

"No, I will contact my father at a later time," Spock says as he sits in the shuttle.

"So who was he?" Gaila asks as she starts up the shuttle.

"An acquaintance," Spock replies. "He is on his way to the Vulcan colony to begin preparations. I was... receiving an affirmation, I suppose."

Gary shrugs and straps himself into the co-pilot's seat next to Gaila. "I've had a couple of beers, by the way; I hope that doesn't matter."

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I can find my way to spacedock without your assistance," Gaila replies. "Everyone ready?"

"Ready enough," Gary laughs.

"What do I tell Jim?" Spock asks as the shuttle lifts off and Gaila begins to pilot out of the hangar. "When I arrive on the ship?"

"Why do you need to tell him anything?" Gaila asks. "I don't think he'll care what made you change your mind." Gaila looks over at Gary and asks, "Does Jim like romance? I don't think I've -- well, that answers my question. If I can't think of an example of him being classically romantic, then he must not think very much of romance."

"What, did you want to stop off for candy for Spock to give him or something?" Gary asks. "Because we're kind of pressed for time."

"Oh, Spock, do you have condoms and lubricant in case the synthesizers aren't prepared for that kind of demand yet?" Gaila asks.

"I cleaned out their stash from the apartment and put it in his bag, don't worry," Gary says.

"Was that necessary?" Spock asks Gary. "Gaila, the synthesizers are equipped for all kinds of demand -- a quality which makes them _synthesizers_."

"Do you really want to get into operations right now?" Gaila asks as she clenches her jaw and they breach the atmosphere above San Francisco and enter the thermosphere. "Because condoms aren't on the priority list of materials for a ship's launch and --"

"Sorry to interrupt this really important argument you guys are having," Gary says as he consults the PADD he brought with him, "But the _Enterprise_'s first officer slot is still technically open. Jim didn't put in Sulu's name like he said he would."

"Then I will simply tell him," Spock says, "That I am applying for the position of first officer."

"Hello, exosphere," Gaila sings to the console. "Let's leave you for spacedock, which is right over there, and looking so lovely today."

"That's a beautiful song," Gary says.

"You sound surprised that I sing so well," Gaila replies.

"Gaila, would I be able to synthesize a science uniform?" Spock asks. Gary looks outside the cockpit at Spock, hands folded tightly in his lap, and maybe for the first time in as long as they've known each other, he looks completely preoccupied and caught up in his own head. "Or would it be presumptuous to arrived dressed for a position that is not technically mine?"

Gary turns around fully and shoves his PADD as close to Spock's face as he can manage. "The space on the roster is _still fucking blank, Spock_! He is going into space _with no first officer_ because _he's waiting for you_! Synthesize the damn uniform!"

"Here we are," Gaila says. "Lovely Earth spacedock!" Gaila announces their arrival to a startled mission control, but once they land their shuttle in the hangar, she unbuckles her belt and grabs Gary's arm. "And we're in time for the party in the admirals' command room! Oh, can we go? Please? We've never been there! If I can give you a handjob there, you'll have one-upped Jim in your little competition!"

"There is a competition?" Spock asks as he unbuckles his belt.

"Don't you have a ship to board?" Gary asks Spock.

"I do," Spock says, and he quickly grabs his bags.

"Live long and prosper, buddy," Gary says.

"Oh, of course, live long and prosper!" Gaila says to Spock as they climb out of the shuttle. "Could I give you a kiss on the cheek, as one or some of us might be dead before we see each other again?"

"Me too," Gary says. "Kisses for everyone!"

Spock allows it, and Gaila beams as they watch Spock's composed run through the hangar towards the _Enterprise_'s loading dock across the way. Gary puts an arm around her and kisses her temple. "That was some nice flying."

"I hope that's not surprise in your tone," she comments as she lets herself be embraced. "Come on, the party's upstairs! I hope they have tiny hot dogs!"


	8. Combinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard thought Spock barely figured into it -- Spock could have been anyone, really. Spock was The Thing keeping him and Jim apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my precious wonderful zlot on the belated occasion of her 25th birthday. [#happy birthday zlot](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/happy%20birthday%20zlot)
> 
> And always omg thank you, waldorph, for talking me through it and listening to the endless bitching and gah. &lt;3

It started with Spock's careful, controlled voice saying:

"I want to watch."

Leonard broke the kiss with Jim, the first one they had shared in almost two years, and looked to Spock for a split-second before looking to Jim --

who had accidentally pulled a 36-hour shift before their dinner for three;

who was looking into Leonard's eyes with absolutely no cues as to how Leonard should answer;

who had his hands on Leonard's waist -- not his hips, not his ass, not the small of his back, but below his fucking ribcage, and gripping not to seduce but holding on to steady himself;

whose own eyes looked too glazed over to be from just one drink;

who --

Leonard actually forgot he was shirtless until he felt Spock's warm hand on his shoulder, gently pulling at him and turning him, and he forgot about Jim as the skin-to-skin contact between him and Spock brought him back to the statement: _I want to watch._

The brain works fast, and it works fastest when aroused; in that moment of contact, Leonard saw it all -- Jim holding onto Leonard as Leonard slowly lifted his eyes to meet Spock's; Spock prying one of the highly magnetized chairs up to position it at the foot of Jim's bed, Spock sprawling in the chair, loose-limbed and almost indolent, unzipping his pants and palming himself through his shorts as he watched Leonard on the bed, Leonard on Jim -- yet there was so little of Jim in it all --

That split-second was enough for Leonard. Spock turned him around and they bumped noses as they dove towards each other, pulled each other in because they each thought the other would need some coaxing. It was sloppy, the way they were so similar -- their mouths opened for each other, tongues met and touched, Spock grabbed on to every part of him until Leonard just let go. He bent a little so he pressed up against Spock, and he let Spock's tongue explore his mouth, his hand move from Leonard's shoulder to his hair and hold him there, another hand groping below, unsure of where to settle.

All of it was enough to almost make him stumble even though he was standing and not walking, even though Spock had a firm grip on him. Leonard adjusted his stance, setting one leg on the other side of Spock's, which opened a whole new can of worms. There they were, like a pair of fucking teenagers, Leonard wrapping his arms around Spock and rutting against his leg like they were at some fucking school dance and Spock just _let him_ \-- just kissed him harder, sucked at his lower lip until it hurt, pushed his leg against Leonard's crotch and brought a hand there to cup and palm and pull the top button open, finally pulled the zipper down so Spock could just slip his hand down Leonard's waistband.

Leonard might have moaned, "Not fair," just then as he was trying not to come _already_ because -- because -- but he might not have said anything at all, actually. In any case, it didn't really matter as Spock pushed him down on the bed and left him alone for only the moment it took to undo his own pants and push them off his hips. Before Leonard could help, Spock was on him again, torturing his swollen lip then moving to his jaw, moving down and kicking off his pants and never letting Leonard forget for a single fucking second the touch of his mouth on Leonard's skin.

He remembered sparing one glance for Jim, wondering where he was -- there was Jim in the corner, the chair Spock would have picked up and placed at the foot of the bed for his viewing pleasure, and Jim was there, hand on his fly, fast asleep.

That was the last -- then Spock settled between Leonard's legs and began to slowly stroke, first Leonard's cock and then both of them, both their fists clamoring to meet and join and work together until Spock abruptly switched hands, steadying himself over Leonard with one arm by his head. He brought a finger, dipped in sweat and precome, to Leonard's hole and pushed in, and then quickly brought the other in -- not to open him up, but thrusting into him. Leonard took the cue and struggled to find a rhythm, first to fuck himself on Spock's fingers and then to bring them both off, their cocks trapped between their stomachs.

Leave it to his goddamned uncreative nature, but Leonard had to spare a ‘thank you’ to the athletic endorphins racing through his blood -- even laying there with Spock fingering him had Leonard's knees up and almost bending him in half, Spock using his fingers _like_ another cock that needed to be thrusted in time, his whole body moving against Leonard's and shaking, especially the arm right next to Leonard's head.

"I'm close," Spock gasped, the few strands of Spock’s hair that weren't soaked with sweat and sticking to his forehead hanging limply near his temples. Then he leaned in to kiss Leonard, almost atoning for how out of control he sounded, almost like he was fucking Leonard through a mattress or something.

Leonard found his other hand in their tangle of limbs and brought it to the nape of Spock's neck and tipped his own head back, subconsciously baring his whole body, spreading his legs wider, making his stomach flatter so as to let Spock drive against him even harder, bringing a third finger into Leonard and crooking the three, thrusting them. As Leonard shut his eyes and felt himself getting close to the brink, _that_ was when Spock said in his lowest voice:

"Come on them, _come_, can you feel them in you -- are my fingers thick enough for you -- feel how I open you -- and do you feel this?"

_This_ was brushing against his prostate, saving the best for last, until Leonard could only still and clench hard around Spock's fingers and tighten his fist around their cocks as his own pulsed and spilled over his hand. He let go and took a whole second for himself before tightening his fist around Spock and encouraging him in his own low voice, "Come on now, just fuck into me, against me, fuck, Spock," all babbling and yet, it totally worked against the soundtrack of the creaking bed, their harsh breaths, and Spock's final cry as he shot into Leonard's hand.

*

Leonard woke up dead the next morning, fucked within an inch of his life. He found himself asleep on his stomach, face smashed into a pillow, drooling everywhere, with an arm draped across Spock, who had returned the gesture by draping a leg that weighed as much as three heavy children over Leonard.

They were (literally) a fucking mess and the room was calmly telling them to wake the hell up, they had meetings.

"It's my professional medical opinion that I'm never gonna walk again," Leonard informed the pillow.

"I will take Jim's shift on the bridge this morning," Spock replied. "Come. Shower."

"Leave me alone, let me die."

Spock had already untangled himself from Leonard and gotten up, and by the time Leonard had shifted on his back and begun the process of sitting up, Spock had started the sonic shower and picked Jim out of the chair he had slept in all night and dropped him semi-gently on the bed.

"He'll be so proud of himself," Leonard noted with a yawn. "All this destruction and wet spots, and he managed to do it with his clothes on."

"I'll make it worth your while if you can convince him of that," Spock replied.

"Just drag me into the shower already."

*

It wasn't like fucking a friend -- not like the casual _we need this right now_ nights he occasionally had with Uhura and/or Christine, or the fun and lively _I missed you so much!_ sex he had with Gary and Gaila when he saw them.

Spock would kiss him, close his eyes, then pull away and just linger there centimeters from Leonard's mouth. Sometimes he would mumble something beautiful and incoherent, whisper it against Leonard's skin, punctuate it with a quick taste --

More importantly, Leonard didn't realize that if someone was watching them, they'd notice how similar it all looked -- how Leonard would drop his head to Spock's shoulder and just breathe in his scent, lean in and bite the pointed tip of his ear so gently, trace the edges with his tongue, and Leonard would have fading marks on his skin from Spock's fingernails where he'd been held tight enough for his body to take notice.

He was finally taking notice of what he damn well deserved.

*

It took Leonard a few weeks, but he finally attempted the conversation with Spock that a responsible adult would have had before pushing Jim aside and commencing Operation Give Leonard's Bed Not Just a Reason to Exist but Be Thankful for Its Creation AKA Operation Yes Yes Fuck Right There Spock Yes.

He had a leg between both of Spock's and it was the intimacy of all this supposedly casual, random, seriously out of goddamned nowhere fucking that reminded Leonard of Jim. (Strangely enough.)

So Leonard said: "We have to talk about Jim. Tell me your side."

Spock liked to save the dramatic one-liners and biting quips for the bridge, and so did Leonard -- for the purposes of better joyfully humiliating each other, it was best if they had an audience of their peers. So Leonard tightened his hand on Spock's thigh and felt him think, work out his words, prepare for something short and… probably not sweet.

"We have the greatest natural affinity I have ever felt with anyone," Spock said. Leonard felt a hesitation in Spock and pat his leg in reassurance. "I knew that on the bridge, when I --"

"I know. I feel that with Jim, too. Still do. Go on."

"Then you know -- you more than anyone, except perhaps -- do you see!" Leonard pulled away a little to try and look at Spock, who wouldn't allow it and just pulled Leonard even closer. "Here I thought Jim and I were one of a kind, a pair made for each other, and when we had each other, everything else would fall in line."

"Yeah," Leonard agreed. "Living with Jim -- I mean really living, co-existing. It's completely different, isn't it? From everything you expected. Everything you wanted."

Spock rubbed his hand soothingly down Leonard's back and kissed his forehead. That was when Leonard knew they were in uncharted territory. Literally where no man had gone before, for Leonard anyway. Who'd been the last person to do that? His _father_?

Shit.

"He isn't enough for us," Spock said, and damn it all if the contractions weren't still distracting (the _informal voice_ as they called it on Vulcan and, apparently, in Standard textbooks on every Federation planet but Earth). "We deserve more, and we want it."

"And what about Jim? Because --"

"We should tell him."

"I'm sure he knows."

"So telling him should be no problem."

*

"Guys, I don't -- care. I don't. Not really," Jim said.

Leonard and Spock glared him down with the fiercest glares they could manage. Jim held up his hands in surrender and laughed a little, then rubbed at his eyes.

"Okay, no, wrong thing to say, fine. Okay. I care. You know I do. I love you both. But. _Yeah._ You guys together. Go for it. Do it. Let me watch sometimes. You do what you need to do."

Leonard and Spock blinked slowly and looked at each other, then back to Jim.

"Dammit, you idiot, what do you _feel_ about this?" Leonard asked as he took Spock's hand and tightened more than he should have. It was fine. Spock could handle it.

"Does it matter?" Jim asked.

"_Yes_," they said together.

"Well."

And Jim looked so damn helpless, standing there on the spot, trying to find words for -- for what?

"Look," Leonard said before Jim burst a gasket in his genius-level but emotionally vacant brain. "What Spock and I have -- you and I never had it. You and Spock never had it. That disgusting, supportive, emotionally-involved romantic love the greeting cards in starbases try to cram down our throats at seasonal intervals. The kind where we genuinely don't _want_ anyone else -- anyone but you. And we don't want you to feel left out."

"Leave me out of it, please," Jim laughed.

The corner of Leonard's mouth tightened just a little and he looked to Spock, who didn't look as rage-happy or frustrated as Leonard had imagined -- he looked fond of Jim, almost, and that was a good sign. Spock looked to Leonard just then and cleared his throat.

"What?" Leonard asked. Jim answered instead.

"Just 'cause I don't want what you want -- what you have -- doesn't mean I care any less," Jim said, his eyes focusing on both of them. He laughed and added, "Despite prior assertions, like when I said _I don't care_... I do. Just." He lifted his hand and ran it quickly through his hair, then asked, "So are we okay?"

"Looks like it," Leonard said. He looked to Spock and squeezed his hand for his attention. Spock looked away from Jim to Leonard and nodded slightly.

"It is not what I expected, but I believe it is the optimal solution," Spock said.

"Isn't that how it usually works?" Jim asked. "Isn't it the best anyone can hope for?"

Leonard grunted to himself, but agreed.

*

Before he and Spock started their thing, Leonard was completely indifferent to him. Okay, not indifferent -- bitter, angry, content to stay in his cocoon of anger at Jim, and satisfied that he would never care about anyone as much as he cared about Jim.

So, no. Not indifferent. But Spock barely figured into it -- Spock could have been anyone, really. Spock was The Thing keeping him and Jim apart, and were Leonard just a fraction more psychotic, there would have been trouble. Leonard being Dr. Leonard McCoy, surgeon extraordinaire, Jim's best friend, and exactly who he was, he was content to pickle himself in whiskey and focus on his work.

As for Spock -- well, Spock didn't even know he was drowning until Leonard yanked him out of the (metaphorical) water and reminded him what breathing felt like.

It changed on one afternoon in sickbay a few weeks before they… got together (with their dicks). Spock had been quarantined for a week and he'd had enough, so he threw a PADD at Geoff M'Benga.

Leonard pushed everyone out, closed the door behind him, and rather than ask Spock what was wrong, he said, "Fuck your quarantine," and grabbed Spock's hand in both of his own, refusing to let go. And the touch telepathy thing -- suddenly it was real and it worked, even on someone as dense as Leonard.

And someone as dense as Leonard did wonders for someone as stubborn and blind as Spock, the bluntness of both their emotional states smashing into each other as they gripped hands and stared at each other. Leonard could feel too much, see too many of Spock's thoughts, all of it rushing through their connection and through his mind: so much loneliness, frustration, disappointment, and _Jim where was Jim why hadn't he visited where was he was it just the quarantine no of course not a quarantine couldn't stop him only Jim Kirk could stop Jim Kirk_ and that was when Leonard let go.

That was when Spock took his hand again and let Leonard feel his shields going up again; that was when Leonard shook his head and said, "You don't need to hide from me."

"Nor you from me," Spock replied. Leonard could feel him calm down -- not just his mind, but his vitals, too, had stopped their deafening beeps on the monitors.

Leonard stammered and said, "I didn't know you at all."

"I was born in the city of Shi'Kahr," Spock began and fuck, Leonard could feel his amusement, laughing at him. What the _fuck_ was going on?

"I'll be back, all right?" Leonard said, pulling his hand away so Spock couldn't tell he was lying and actually he didn't want to come back at all until he had figured shit out.

Even without the touch telepathy, Spock lifted his eyebrow to show that he _could_ tell because Leonard was a terrible liar.

Eventually, Jim did visit Spock, and Jim apologized for abandoning Leonard when they got back after the _Narada_ disaster, and then Jim fell asleep in a chair as Leonard and Spock fucked (twice!) on Jim's bed. There was the catch, Leonard thought. Too much of it seemed like chance -- like Jim and Spock would still be, for all intents and purposes, _married_ if Jim hadn't pulled a 36-hour shift that night Leonard and Spock fucked, or if Jim wasn't working particularly hard that week Spock was quarantined.

But if it wasn't those things, then they'd both pick on Jim and resent him for his general distance -- the way they both knew, deep down, that neither of them had never gotten to the _core_ of who Jim Kirk was, yet with an instant of fucking _hand holding_ in sick bay, they had understood each other as no one else had before.

So when Jim said he didn't care -- well, he loved them, of course, as much as he could love anyone or anything. As much as he loved exploring, doing the right thing, solving problems, his _ship_, being alive -- he loved Leonard and Spock more than himself, that was for sure. He'd die for them, no question.

Who could live with that? Who could build a life around that?

Leonard and Spock would, but they couldn't live _there_, in that nucleus full of adventure and fun and all of Jim's brightness, but devoid of warmth.

So what recourse was left them but to put their heads together and make something for themselves?

*

They went on shore leave to some beach planet with a Vulcan embassy that Spock's father allowed them to use -- Leonard, Jim, Spock, the rest of the bridge crew, and even Gary and Gaila made it out there to spend a week with them.

Gary had gotten "food poisoning" that he couldn't admit was closer to alcohol poisoning than anything else, so Leonard stayed in with him for the night while everyone else explored the city nearby.

"Don't tell Jim, but I didn't think it would last, you know, just the two of them," Gary said. "The whole monogamously happily ever after thing." They were outside on the balcony connected to Leonard's room, Gary on the floor turned on his side so his liver couldn't hurt him anymore (except when it did). Leonard pulled his knees up to his chest and looked out to the beach and the ocean with the light of the two moons shining on the water. "You don't go through what Jim's gone through and come out on the other end a functional human being. Okay, wait, functional, yes, but whole? No way."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"What? I thought you knew that, so you took what you could get when you were with him," Gary replied. "Somewhere along the line, Jim figured the best way to deal with his shitty, _shitty_ life, was to… avoid feeling too much." Gary shifted a little on the floor so he could look at Leonard a bit better as he talked. "I was at their place when Spock resigned his commission, and they went to their room to talk about it. Then I get these projections, all this feeling of… _needing_ and _want_ and _please don't go_."

"So Jim does --"

"Jim was the one yelling and saying Spock had to come, but Spock was the one feeling those things," Gary explained. "All Spock needed him to say was _come with me because you belong with me, because I want you_, and do you think it even occurred to Jim for like, a second, to use pathos to get something he wanted? And if it did occur to him, that he'd know the right thing to say? Nope. He's just totally shut down there."

As much as Leonard hated to admit it -- that did coincide with the Jim and Spock he knew. That Jim was loud, boisterous, obnoxious, and a pain in the ass, but smarter and quicker than anyone he had ever met (except for Spock) -- Jim who had survived so much and lived a life trimmed of all the fat that made others comfortable and content.

Spock, who he hadn't known before the _Narada_, but who he knew now as someone who felt so much, constantly, and struggled every minute of every day with reining everything in to present that cool, consistent front. Spock who was always amused, proud, and so many things tangled up at once -- Uhura said he was crisp and clear compartments before the Battle of Vulcan, but Leonard has melded with him, too, and seen in his head, so he doesn't think that's totally accurate. There might have been a clearly distinct Vulcan side and a Terran side, but the Vulcan side was probably as neat and orderly as white walls a (Terran) toddler had taken all the crayons to while the babysitter napped.

It was still annoying, though, that Leonard had worked so hard and gone through so much to understand his friends as much as he did, while Gary could sum them up so simply. "Not everyone is a fucking test waiting to be _gamed_, Gary," Leonard said.

"Oh yes they are," Gary laughed shortly. "Everyone has a point of entry, point of exit; everyone has an easy path and a difficult one to the center; everyone has a shortcut to their most vulnerable spot." Leonard looked to Gary, who grinned and raised his eyebrows. "Wanna know yours?"

"Like I don't know them already," he replied with a roll of his eyes. "You can't live like you do, Gary. It's sick. I mean, who do you care about most? Who would you die for?"

"Seriously?" Gary asked. "That's not an accurate gauge of anything."

Leonard raised his eyebrows skeptically and Gary sighed. He did think it was stupid to lend any credence to the kid in front of him, lying on his side on a balcony floor and clutching his abdomen because he had thought half a bottle of Romulan ale was a _great_ complement to his boring breakfast, but Leonard couldn’t help it. It was Gary and he was scarily astute about a lot of things, even if one of them wasn’t how much liquor can the human liver conceivably handle in one sitting.

"I know you guys go to lots of planets with strange customs and someone dies every time, but there's the catch -- you don't get to _pick_ when. You won't get to hold up your hands and say _now wait a minute -- take my boyfriend out of the firefight and put me in there first because I would like to die for him, if you please_. Chances are, you're going to watch Jim or Spock die in your lifetime --"

"Been there, brought 'em back to life, continue," Leonard joked (but not really) and pretending he wasn't listening as raptly to Gary as he actually was.

"Point is," Gary said with a quick glare to Leonard and raised, skeptical eyebrows, "We're _all_ going to die, so don't blow it on another mortal. For a shipful of people? For a planet? Yeah, definitely, but one person? It just doesn't add up. Not worth it. It'll make you feel better, but what's the return on that kind of sacrifice? You've only got one life. Make it count, you know? George Kirk that shit."

"How, exactly, are you and Jim best friends again?"

"I give great head. Also, he knows I'm right. Put a phaser in his hand and tell him that he has to kill you or Spock or all three of you die -- he'll kill Spock. You have a different, valuable skill set, and feelings don't matter in space."

"They don't," Leonard admitted, "But luckily, we live in starships, in rooms that we make our homes for years at a time, and those _skill sets_ in uniforms become our families." He looked at Gary, who was thinking it over and then shrugged.

"Yeah, I concede," he finally admitted.

"Thank fuck. That's bordering on antisocial, Gary. Like, real, disturbing antisocial behavior."

"My Starfleet file calls it _a firm grasp on realism_," Gary replied as he grinned.

"And what's Gaila have to say about it?"

Gary suddenly looked cold and fierce, and said, "Buddy, you don't know Gaila. Just know that she agrees with me."

"Did I hit a sensitive spot?" Leonard teased. He lowered one of his legs and nudged Gary's abdomen with his toe, which had Gary groaning again. "Like… here?"

"Stop, I'm going to throw up on you then I’ll die," Gary moaned.

"Stop crying; if you haven’t died yet, you’ll be fine."

Just so the night wasn't a completely terrifying and slightly depressing wash, he and Gary talked about the latest season of _The Lady and Her Robot_, a terrible name for such an awesome one-hour serial drama they both obsessed over. They talked until the house filled up with people again, and Spock and Jim and Gaila came into the room to join them on the floor of the balcony, telling them about the city they absolutely _have_ to visit before they all left.

"And what did you boys do all night?" Gaila asked as she draped herself over Jim's shoulders and reached over to stroke Gary's hair.

"Oh, the usual," Leonard said. "Talked about movies, television, books, Gary's latent sociopathic tendencies, the usual."

"He is so _cute_," Gaila cooed as she ran her fingers through his hair some more. "Thinking he can exert any kind of force over his miniscule part of the universe if he just talks at it long enough."

Everyone leaned over to look at Gary, who had closed his eyes and contentedly let Gaila play with his hair.

"Hey, gets you off, doesn't it?" Gary finally said. He cracked an eye open and looked at Gaila, whose hand stilled. She raised her eyebrows and nodded, giving him a scarily sweet and vaguely threatening smile.

"Ask me that when it's just you and me and you don't have to show off for your boyfriends," she said. "Especially poor Leonard -- you know how susceptible he is to people smarter than him."

"Hey," Leonard protested.

"Sorry, should have clarified -- _seem_ smarter," she grinned. “Actually smarter doesn’t apply to Gary.”

"The hell it doesn't," Gary snapped playfully. "I AM A GOD!" he yelled to the empty beach as the rest of them laughed and Gaila asked Jim where, exactly, he had _found_ this creature and why she was stuck with him.

Leonard felt a nudge at his side -- Spock had finally deigned to sit on the floor of the balcony with them and gave Leonard the ultimate shit-eating smirk that no one else saw, being too busy indulging Gary's megalomania (as usual). "Right?" Leonard agreed, and Spock just nodded before he lifted his hand and let it rest in Leonard’s hair, sending a shiver down his back as Spock’s fingers gently touched the edges of Leonard’s ear. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, letting the bickering fade into the background and Gary’s bullshit float away into the ether.

*

The next morning, Jim raised an eyebrow and said, "No. Gary's full of shit."

Leonard was suddenly sorry he had brought it up and dug back into his breakfast, hoping it would go away.

"Save me from these empaths and telepaths who think they know me and what I've been through better than I know myself," Jim snapped. He looked across the table at Spock and pursed his lips. "You’re not one of them," he added after a moment.

They were eating breakfast in their suite, and Leonard knew the tension in the air, the one where they were all working out what to say next. Well, Jim and Spock were -- he was done opening his fool mouth.

"Just because I don't want…" Jim shoved the rest of his toast slice in his mouth and used both hands to motion to the two of them and the space between them, waving his hands around to signify some invisible magic that had Leonard rolling his eyes already. "Doesn't mean there's something wrong with me," Jim finished as crumbs flew out of his mouth.

"And how do we fit into your feelings on the matter?" Spock asked as he prodded at his breakfast and avoided eye contact with them. Leonard watched him and then looked to Jim, who looked ready to burn down the embassy rather than evaluate his feelings for another second.

"Does anything have to change?" Jim asked sharply. "Do you not want us to sleep together anymore? Do you guys need a schedule or something so you're not at my beck and call? Do you want to invite Chekov and Sulu into the mix because, like them as I do, I'm kind of good with just the two of you and the occasional… not you."

"Can we just drop it," Leonard interrupted before Jim broke the butter dish and Spock cut his own throat with the shards. Fuck, at least they were _all_ terrible at this. He'd have to drown Gary in the ocean later, though, no question about that. "I think we're overthinking this." He cleared his throat and said to both of them, "This would matter more if we were ever going to settle down someday." He glanced at them each in turn and added, "But since it looks like we all like what we do too much for that, and we're going to be big damn space heroes until we die, our system works just fine."

There was a beat, and then Spock asked, "When did you become the logical one?"

"Does your space psychiatry certification really allow you to say that _denial_ is the best course of action here?" Jim added.

"Guess what," Leonard began. "We've been here five days and we _still_ haven't had sex. Explain that."

"Speak for yourself," Jim replied, and then thought about it for a moment. "Oh. Us three. Yeah, we should get on that. We three. Not… me and… okay, do you know how creepy the two of you are when you do your eyebrow things? Because it's so creepy."

Leonard and Spock's eyes met and Leonard had to laugh at the legitimate creepiness of their eyebrow synchronicity. Leonard leaned against his hand and looked to Jim, knowing he looked a hapless, unwashed mess who, fuck, didn't _need this_ right now in the middle of breakfast on their damn vacation. Jim raised his eyebrows a little in silent agreement.

They both looked to Spock, who was about to drink from his glass. After a moment's consideration, he tipped the glass at them and looked away, which they both took as a unanimous agreement to shut the fuck up about their fucking feelings for the rest of their fucking shore leave.

And, of course, that they should bone later.

*

Every time the three of them have sex, Leonard thinks they should work out some kind of _system_ or schedule to make it a regular occurrence so none of them would be caught off guard or on an off-night.

Yet the three of them are together pretty often (sometimes they even _just sleep_ together) and have done so for months now -- he thinks if there were problems, they would have been voiced already. The three of them are vocal about goddamn _everything_; one would think that at some point, if the way the cards had fallen didn't please someone, one of their big mouths would say, "Look, this has been fun, but --"

Maybe the fact that it hasn't been an issue yet -- that _Leonard_, the most easily irritated person in the galaxy and the first to make his bitching heard no matter how delicate the situation, hasn't complained yet -- is a sign that it's working. That there's nothing to fix. That this is how it's supposed to be.

Leonard means to delve into it every time Jim shows up at the door of whose room they're staying that night, but he doesn't. He can't, really. Not when Jim is standing in the doorway, the door sliding closed behind him with a quiet whoosh, his eyes settling on both of them and then the space between them in bed.

It doesn't fit any established paradigm Leonard knows, and maybe that's what unsettles him every time Jim appears at their door. When this happened at the Academy, Leonard was the silent one, Jim bantering with Gary or Gaila until they lost themselves in fucking and being fucked. It's different now, though -- maybe because they all know that once they get past small talk into something serious, they'll talk and bicker all damn night and go to their shifts in the morning ready to snap off everyone's heads and/or blow up a planet to let off some steam.

So it's for the best if Jim just walks in and sits on a side of the bed (Leonard or Spock's, it's pretty random every time), and start with a touch.

Like he sits on Leonard's side some nights and ask about the memo he just sent that he knows Leonard's reading on his PADD, and they'll nod and talk about following up for a few seconds, and then Jim's hand is on Leonard's leg, stroking the calf and moving up, his finger running along the back of Leonard's knee.

Gary claims it's proof that Jim's an empath, the way he can just touch Leonard and there's instantly arousal -- empathy is the exchange of feelings, a push and pull between minds and feelings, what Leonard and other psi-null people would call "reading people well."

Leonard thinks of that every time, every time Jim's hand first touches him or when Spock takes Jim's hand and pulls him into bed, linking their hands together and losing himself instantly as Jim pulls a couple of Spock's fingers into his mouth and sucks hard -- whatever the reason, he stops thinking of Gary and memos and damn near everything every time Jim touches him.

"Get up here already, will you," Leonard growls as he grabs his hand and yanks a little roughly. Jim laughs and takes the cue, tumbles forward and then takes the opportunity to straddle Leonard's hips, the thin layers of their shorts barely separating them. Spock looks over and gives them five seconds to each other, for Leonard to just rock up against Jim and run his hands over Jim's thighs and grip his hips.

Then Spock puts his PADD away and slides over so his body presses along Leonard's side, Jim's knee kind of pressing in between them, and he turns Leonard's face and kisses him hard. By now, he knows Leonard needs this, to be pulled away from his thoughts once and for all, and he's happy to do it while Jim climbs off and makes away with their shorts (which -- why do they even bother -- oh, right, emergencies, which aren't rare enough for their liking).

As Leonard slides down the wall/headboard and gives his mouth over to Spock, Spock and Jim cover him -- the heat of Jim's mouth engulfs his cock while Spock lazily explores his mouth, one hand in Leonard's hair. Spock's other hand travels down to his sensitive lower stomach, so close to Jim's mouth, and teases. Leonard eyes are closed and his arms are as wrapped around Spock as they can be, but he can almost see it -- Spock's hand pressing his hips down into the bed so he can't thrust up, then letting him go so his fingers can run through Jim's hair.

When he does break the kiss and look down, Spock has his eyes closed and his cheeks are flushed -- his fingers are down by Jim's mouth, tracing the base of Leonard's cock, occasionally slipping into Jim's mouth and being taken along for the ride in Jim's greedy mouth.

"Mouth like a quasar," is what Leonard manages to half-moan and Spock laughs, kisses him approvingly, while Jim digs his fingers harder into Leonard's thighs -- obvious approval right there, too. _It's like you work in space!_ is probably what Jim would say, were his mouth not full of Leonard's balls at that moment.

Then it usually plays out like this:

\- Spock prefers to avoid being penetrated;  
\- Jim prefers to be penetrated;  
\- Leonard would do anything to anyone because flexibility is key when his space husbands are that attractive, and they may not have strong preferences beyond _LET’S DO THIS NOW_, but have strong opinions about what 'this' shouldn't entail.

Really, Leonard thinks as he watches Spock rim Jim's asshole and listens to Jim put on the moaning and thrashing show he knows Leonard loves, the three of them together are so ordinary and boring (in the best way).

(Leonard admits to himself that it's hard to recall that blasé attitude later when he's pushing down on Jim's shoulder blade so his body's at that perfect sharp angle every time Leonard slams into him, or when he's alongside Spock, sucking at his neck and stroking his dick as Jim thrusts hard between Spock's thighs -- Jim can whine sometimes about non-penetrative sex being a cop-out, but that just makes Spock press his thighs closer together and have Jim _really_ work for it.

Blasé is really a difficult attitude to maintain at times like these.)

The three of them spent, the lights off, Jim curled up into himself tightly because that's the only way he can sleep, Leonard and Spock's hands linked briefly over Jim until they fall asleep -- it's a wonder Leonard bothers to question why they work.

*

Outside the bedroom, away from shore leave, in the day-to-day -- well, Gary was right again. Leonard hated when Gary was right.

Gary had cynically said that Leonard would be preserved above everyone else because he was a _valuable skill set_ and, yeah, okay, that was true, and it was the accepted contingency plan whenever shit went wrong on a planet. Even when nothing went wrong, Jim would return to the bridge, survey everything with that appraising eye, and Leonard knew he was thinking about what would happen if it were threatened.

The plan looked something like this --

\- Get Leonard off the planet and back to the ship;  
\- Get Scotty on the bridge;  
\- Get the _Enterprise_ the fuck out of there.

It wasn't like they didn't have any other doctors, but Leonard had to be whisked back to the ship before anyone else and protected, and to hell with all that nonsense like he could still be of some use to the away team down on a planet.

That was when Jim confirmed Gary's view on preserving Leonard above all things, but put a less disturbing spin on it.

"Not this again," Jim snapped as he took a swig of whiskey from the bottle Leonard kept in his private office in sick bay just for these harrowing occasions. "We're not arguing about it again."

Even Spock looked tired and Leonard could see him eyeing the bottle being passed between Leonard and Jim, which Leonard silently offered to Spock the next time it came to him. He declined it and continued to wilt in his chair. After the three of them and the rest of the away team had escaped a venomous spore-ridden planet where the air turned toxic within minutes of stepping into some kind of innocuous-looking but inevitably evil meadow, the least Jim and Leonard could do was drink and the least Spock could do was let his posture slip a little.

Times like these, Jim liked to stay quiet, but that day had too close of a call for their collective comfort, and Leonard raised an eyebrow at Jim’s sudden rush of babbling before he took the bottle back for himself.

"I think we've been to enough places and encountered enough cultures, peaceful and not, to know that everyone values self-preservation, and doctors are way higher than diplomats on the scale of people liable _not_ to be murdered on an away mission." Jim reached for the bottle, rolled his eyes when it was denied him, and tapped his fingers impatiently on Leonard's desk. "We're always going to choose you," he added, "So just shut the fuck up about it."

Choose him, Leonard thought, meant they would choose his vocation, but what about _him_?

"Funny you say that when there are a dozen other --"

"There isn't another you," Jim snapped.

"M'Benga's perfectly equipped to --"

"Are you an idiot?" Jim asked as his head turned quickly to look at Leonard with a hard look. "I said there isn't another _you_ \-- there isn't another Leonard Horatio Stubborn Stupid Fucking Idiot McCoy on board this ship, and _that's_ who me and Spock want. That's who everyone on board this _ship_ wants."

Leonard stared for a moment and Jim took the opportunity to snatch the bottle back and take a deep swig from it.

"Yeah, send me all the personnel profiles you want, highlight all their relevant work experience and specialties, but it all adds up to _they're not you_ and we want _you_."

Spock took the bottle from Jim's hand, had a quick sip, and added, "Yes."

"To what?" Leonard asked Spock, and his voice betrayed that he was more flustered than he cared to admit. "To the part where --"

"Yes," Spock insisted, and Leonard took the bottle back and didn't bring it up any more.

"I've done a lot of stupid shit in my life, and I mean _a lot_," Jim began. Leonard looked over at him and saw his glare fixed at a point on a distant wall, almost like he was afraid of making eye contact with either of them. "But the worst was letting both of you go. Won't do it again."

"Yet Admiral Pike so looks forward to your action-packed mission reports," Spock remarked.

"I'm never letting the two of you out of bed again," Jim decided. "Nothing bad ever happens there."

"Except the occasional sprained muscle," Spock said.

"You say so _now_," Leonard said to Jim. "Tonight we'll be murdered in our sleep by renegade Romulans. Way to go."

"Shut up," Jim said.

Leonard reached across the desk, past the whiskey bottle, and grabbed Jim's nervously tapping hand, clutching it tightly. It took Jim a couple of long moments, but he finally twisted his hand and clutched Leonard's, too.

It was irrational, really, for Jim to think he could stop either of them from dying just through his sheer force of will, so Leonard took Jim's declaration that they would never die, _ever_, for what it was.

Spock reached over and laid his hand on both of theirs, squeezed them hard, and that was that.

*

Leonard doesn't want to know what their lives are like in other universes where he, Spock, and Jim weren't broken so thoroughly while still so young -- universes where they had time to piece themselves together before the three of them met, rather than three fragile things smashing against the same wall and still figuring out how they work now.

Because they _do_ work. For Leonard, it's impossible to imagine a life without both of them -- without Starfleet, his friends, his staff, his _calling_.

Then again, hadn't he also thought the same thing about his daughter? About his wife, his hometown, his parents just down the road, his practice, his friends?

No -- things are different now. He knows it, he feels it every time he steps onto the bridge and looks out at the nebula or planet they're approaching. Every time Jim or Spock pages him and says, "You should come up here, you'll never believe this" or however Spock phrases it -- now he's learned to read Spock and he can hear the faintest little warbles in his voice when he's excited and trying to control it.

It's taken him long enough, but he's learned how totally unimaginative he is, and he's even made peace with the fact that sometimes he'll just _have_ to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Like those days when Jim has unfurled from the tense shell he becomes in his sleep and Leonard gets to wake up with Jim's back pressed against him and Jim's hand resting on Spock's chest; he wakes up to Spock looking at him over Jim, his eyes still opening and closing lazily as he wakes up. (Something he knows and loves -- really, really loves? That Spock is a morning person and he _doesn’t like it_. It makes him giddy to know Spock hates mornings as much as Jim and Leonard do.)

Yeah, and sometimes he wakes up on the floor of some pseudo-Roman prison, in a cave, or in the decadent room of some palace on a batshit crazy planet, but on those days when he wakes up and they're the first people he sees -- that's where he belongs, with his two jackasses, and it's worth the ever-changing, occasionally deadly scenery and bit players who try to make their boring lives interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck, if I tell you the title comes from Eisley's [Combinations](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIyXJRfIPqA), would you judge me forever?


End file.
